Daala and the Fleet
by darth rat
Summary: My first BSG fic. A crossover from Star Wars to Galactica, as a Imperial Admiral finds herself lost after a hyperspace accident. Please review and tell me if you like it or not. Spoilers up to Razor, and beyond in future chapters.
1. Emergency Jump

**I own none of these characters.**

**This may seem like just SW in the beginning, but it is mostly BSG. Anyway, if you don't know much about SW, Daala is a fairly ruthless commander.**

**Spoilers: Razor, or anything involving the Pegasus and Cain. Maybe more later. I'm not sure.**

**Anyway, first time at a BSG fic or a crossover, so please let me know if you like it or not. Thanks.**

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**Chapter 1- Emergency Jump**

_A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…_

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**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

"Sithspit!" Admiral Natasi Daala cried out as an explosion rocked the bridge of her Star Destroyer, sending her to her knees. Brushing her long copper hair out of her face, she whirled around furiously to her Executive Officer, Commander Kretas. His usually neat brown hair was tussled, but his face retained its usual mask of calmness. "What just hit us?!" she snapped at him.

Kretas looked up from his console. "Four rebel cruisers just jumped in right on top of us! We took a turbolaser salvo within seconds of their arrival."

Daala fumed. Her last remaining Star Destroyer, the _Gorgon_, had survived surprise attacks, black holes, and even a supernova. But her beloved ship had been badly damaged. They had jumped into a remote system and started to repair. They should have been unfindable.

She swore. This should not be happening. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she snapped "Status!" Her XO looked at her and, for the first time she could remember in all her years of serving with him, she saw fear in his eyes.

"We took a hit right on to of the bridge. Shield generators are gone and we lost our long range comm system."

Daala closed her eyes, plans flipping through her head. She had been a top student at the Cardia academy, but the Imperial bias of females had kept her from being promoted until Moff Tarkin had taken her under his wing, as both student and lover. Assigned to guard a top secret instillation with her Star Destroyers, she had been out of contact with the galaxy until recently. Her prototype weapon had been stolen, and her fleet decimated. On the run, she ha stumbled upon this abandoned system. She had sent some fighters out to take a look at the damage, and it twisted her gut to have seen her ship in such a bad state. The normally pristine white paint was scorched black, and at least one of her main engines was out. Fortunately, her Mk. II Imperial Star Destroyer was equipped with a repair kit. It included scaffoldings and other material that could be magnetically fixed to the side of her Destroyer. Right now there were hundreds of workers climbing around the _Gorgon_, along with two TIE Fighters flying escort. She glanced at the holo board that showed the position of ships. The rebel Mon Calamari cruisers were much more than a match for her battered ship. Drawing in a deep breath, she turned towards her navigation officer. "Initiate-" she stopped in mid sentence. The navigation officer was dead. His console must have overloaded and exploded. Turing away from a face marred by hundred of glass cuts, she switched again to Kretas. "Jump!"

Kretas's jaw dropped in disbelief.They wouldn't have a jump solution for at least five minutes, so the only option was a blind jump, which did not travel on a known path. "Admiral, we have people out there! They'll die if we jump!"

Daala glared at him. "You think I don't know that?! We'll all die if we sit here."

Kretas tried one more tactic. "We could run into a planet or sun!"

In a flash of frustration she withdrew her blaster. Instead of pointing it at Kretas's head, as she knew that he was not afraid to die, she aimed it at another one of her crew members, a small woman who was cowering in a corner, trying to escape Daala's wrath. "Jump or she dies." she said coolly. With a pained expression on his face, Kretas reached over to the navigation console and pushed the hyperdrive system into active mode. As he did this, Daala made a mental note to deal with him later. If they survived. Another push activated the hyperdrive, starting to process of moving far faster than the sped of light.

As the _Gorgon_ started to move forward, she tried not to look out the view port, but she couldn't close her eyes. She saw the workers that were only a few minutes ago calmly trying to repair the ship go flying, some into space, some impacting into the metal hull. She even noticed one man literally break in half from the impact. She could even swear she could hear the scream of the TIE Fighters' engines as they tried to catch up to the destroyer. Just as the _Gorgon _was entering hyperspace they received a direct turbolaser salvo to the engines, sending the destroyer tumbling almost 90°. Everyone with a window saw an amazing sight. The _Gorgon_ tumbled as it went into hyperspace _sideways_, not straight, ripping a hole in the empty vacuum where it once was. Daala was flung across the room, slamming her head into a bulkhead. She heard something snap. And then darkness started to creep in. She tried to fight it off, but even her iron will had its limits. The last thing she remembered was hoping that her ship would survive. And then the darkness took her.

**Hope that wasn't too confusing. Please Review!**


	2. A Imperial Standoff

**Finally some contact. Right now, the only spoilers are if you don't know what a resurrection ship is (and if you don't know all 7 models)**

**Oh, I don't own Star Wars or Galactica. I wish I did.**

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**Chapter 2- A Imperial Standoff**

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**Imerial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

She was aware of movements, but just blurs, racing in front of her. As she started to regain consciousness, she could smell the metal scent of blood. She tried to move and but found that she couldn't. Someone was grabbing her head, shaking it. From far off, she could hear people. "Admiral!" someone yelled at her.

_Who was that_? she thought groggily. Suddenly someone slapped her on the face. "Private Natasi! Ten-hut!" Years of training from various Imperial academies had drilled this routine through her. She tried to spring to attention, but only managed to stagger into a crouch. After a few seconds she was able to open her eyes. What she was a battered Kretas knelling next to her. She glared daggers at him.

"If you ever do that again I'll kill you." she tried to say, but it came out in a much less coherent fashion. Nevertheless, her XO understood what she was trying to say. He shrugged. "It was the only way to get you up." He almost added that it was something he had been wanting to do for a long time, but figured she wouldn't really appreciate that.

Kretas helped her to her feet. After he let go of her she stumbled a bit, but then managed to keep her balance. She looked around the bridge. It was in bad shape, but it could have much worse. Most of the equipment was intact, and Daala only spotted four dead. As she looked at the dead, she recognized on of them. It was the woman she had been threatening with her blaster. It was very ironic.

Suddenly the blast door to the bridge opened. A team of medics arrived, finding the wounded and marking the dead for pickup. Even as the medics were working more crew spilled into the bridge to help repair the damage and to replace the dead men's positions. She had trained her crew well. At that thought a small smile graced her lips, but that was soon replaced by a wince of pain.

One of the medics noticed her and came over. "Admiral, let me see your head." Despite numerous protests and threats on her part, the doctor managed to examine her. She had a fractured rib that hurt like hell, along with some cuts, bruises, and scrapes. She also probably had a minor concussion, but everyone who knew Daala knew that would not keep her away from her work.

After less than ten minutes the bridge was back and ready for action. Daala took a deep breath, wincing as she aggravated her broken rib. She turned her XO. "Status report."

Leaning over the shoulder of the new damage control officer (she did not know his name, her last one currently was in a body bag with a piece of metal through his throat) her XO spoke to her. "We got hit hard sir. We lost the left engine of our three main engines, so we have to cut down power on the right to keep a steady course. Shield generator domes are completely gone, as is the long range comm unit. We don't have the parts to fix them. We lost parts of our nav computer, and we lost about nineteen of our guns. About the only good news is that we lost the rebels. We're in empty space."

No sooner had he said that than the computer buzzed a warning. The sensor officer was so busy looking at his screen that he didn't bother to address Daala while he was talking. "Two contacts, 300 klicks away, unknown ships. Putting them up on the main screen." In the center of the bridge a massive holo projector flickered to life, revealing a blurry image of a craft with two Y shaped hulls connected by a single pylon, forming a star pattern. Alongside it was a odd ship that was like a very long triangular prism. Immediately the star like ship moved in front of the other ship. Daala watched in confusion. "Hail them." she ordered. Kretas picked up a comlink and spoke.

"This is the Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_ to unidentified ships. State your names and intentions." There was no response. Her sensor officer turned to Daala. "Admiral, we're detecting radiation coming from the hull of that ship. They must have some kind of nuclear device."

Daala frowned. Nuclear devise were very outdated. A turbolaser blast was much more efficient…Daala snapped her head up, whirling to the sensor officer. "Do they have any energy readings for weapons?" she asked.

He shook his head. "They don't have anything. No lasers, ion cannons...and no shields."

Frustrated by the unknown ships unwillingness to comply, Daala snatched a comlink up and thumbed it on. "Unknown vessels, power down your weapons and engines and-"

--

**Resurrection Ship 001**

"-prepare to boarded." In the resurrection ship a group of Cylon models stood around a data table, listing to the speech that came over their wireless in perfect old colonial English, discussing options. The Cylons aboard this ship were holding a meeting, led by the number Two. Each copy of Cylon that was on the ship had either played a part in infiltrating the fleet or manipulating humans. The first to speak was D'Anna Biers, a Number Three. "We do not know what that ship is. Courses of action?"

Aaron Doral, a Five, listed off the options. "Option One: we fight them. Option Two: we run. My model says fight."

A Two, Leoben Conoy, spoke up. "We second it."

This time it was an Eight, a copy that had been known as Sharon "Boomer" Valerii. After being shot by a crew member aboard the _Galactica_ her mental state was very unstable. But she was still capable of talking for the rest of her sisters. ""Fight." she said.

Caprica Six looked a bit uneasy. "We don't even have any idea who they are."

Brother Cavil spoke up. "Of course we do. They're the Imperial fraking Navy! What else in God's name are we supposed to know?!" Caprica glared at him. "Don't use God's name lightly Cavil. He has a plan for us all. Jut because you are far from His grace does not mean you can shout blasphemy."

Before the fight could escalate any further Simon, a Four, stepped in between them. "Can we please stop arguing about God and get on with this?"

Both Cavil and Caprica stared at him. It was Cavil who spoke. "Typical. Well, you are a scientist. Do _you _have an idea?" Simon shook his head. "Nope." Caprica groaned inwardly. The Fours never had anything to say.

Seeing that the meeting was getting out of hand, Doral put his hand in the data stream, its glowing light engulfing his arm. "It is decided." he said. "By majority vote, we will blow that ship out of the sky." He now speaking directly to the hybrid. "Launch all of our Raiders."

**Like it? Hate it? Please let me know.**


	3. A Battle With the Cylons

**I still do not own anything.**

**Not much in the way of spoilers here, but they will start coming soon.**

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**Chapter 3- ****A Battle With the Cylons**

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**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

Daala watched the unknown ships as hundreds of crescent shaped objects seemed to fall off of the bottom surfaces of the star shaped ship. Without taking her eyes off the holo she spoke. "Are they launching fighters?"

Her sensor officer nodded. "Yes. 792 fighters are coming of the star ship. No fighters from the other. They are very slow. They couldn't even keep up with a TIE Bomber. No shields or energy weapons."

Daala called up the fighter inventory on her personal datapad. The _Gorgon_ had started its life with six squadrons of TIEs, or seventy-two craft. They had consisted of three TIE Starfighter squadrons, two TIE Bomber squadrons, and one squadron of elite TIE Interceptors, along with gunboats and armed shuttles. They had been lucky and had only lost a few fighters in combat, and had used onboard fabrication facilities to replace what they had lost. Pilots were no problem, as the ship carried almost 10,000 Stormtroopers, and they had been proven very adaptable for flight training.

Daala had also taken the liberty of using some of the engineers at the Maw facility, the top secret think tank she had been guarding, to upgrade her TIEs with modifications like miniaturized hyperdrives, shield generators, extra laser and ion cannon mounts, and even two TIEs had cloaking generators. Right now she was down only two TIE Starfighters, the ones that she had left behind as she jumped. As per protocol, they would have self destructed before being captured by the rebels.

Normally 792 fighters would be too much for her force to handle, but their speed, coupled by their lack of energy weapons and shields, would make them much easer to kill. "Launch all fighters." she said. "Interceptors in front and Bombers in back. Have the Bombers stay out of laser range and launch missiles." On her command, the shield generator that kept air in the hanger bay was turned off. Row after row of TIEs fell of the racks, plunging out of the bottom of the ship. Daala continued to give orders. "Weapons, what did we loose?"

Her weapons officer was new. Her previous one had broken his neck during the jump. Nervous at being directly addressed by the Admiral, he stammered, "Ahh-we still have-"

Daala cut him off. "I asked what we lost, not what we had!"

The officer cringed and looked back at his console. "Sorry sir. Umm, we lost four anti-fighter lasers, seven turbolasers, two heavy turbolasers, and three ion cannons. Our main batteries are still intact. Unfortunately, the MCPS is offline.

Daala let out a small sigh. The Meta-Crystal Phase Shifter was a weapon that she had taken from the Maw facility before it was destroyed. It turned portions of a ship's hull into powder. It was not so dramatic that the whole ship simply powderized, it just weakened the structural integrity so much that the ship would break apart. It could penetrate shields, although with these new ships that was not an issue. At least her main batteries were working. They consisted of eight dual turrets flanking the bridge of her ship. Six of them had the heaviest turbolasers in existence mounted on them. The remaining two had heavy ion cannons on them.

"Bring the ship around." Daala said. "Prepare to fire."

--

**Cylon Raider 18503**

Raider 18503 cruised through space, leading another ten Raiders behind it. It was not completely self-aware, but it did know what it was and its mission. It preformed a scan of its weapons. Both of its Kinetic Energy Weapons were online with a full load of 3,000 rounds, and its two Nuclear Missiles were optimal. It scanned the unknown hostile craft approaching. Several had energy anomalies around them. No radiological weapons were detected. The targets were very fast. It designated contact 34 and 37 as prime targets, as they were slower than some of the rest, and had no energy anomalies around them. It also detected that all contacts were networked and within transmission range. Its red eye pulsed once.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

On board the _Gorgon_ a program detected an intruder. In the bridge, the computer blared out a warning. "Virus detected."

One of Daala's tech specialists turned to her. "Admiral, the unknown targets are tempting to infect our systems with a virus. It is very primitive, and there's no way that it can even hack into one of our fighters."

Daala gave that some thought. Obviously the enemy had thought that they were susceptible to a virus. That could have been deadly if it weren't for the firewalls built into all Imperial electronics. Then she had an idea that could help level the playing field for her fighters. "Can someone crack open that virus and tell me what it does?"

Her tech specialist typed in a few commands and a list appeared on Daala's datapad. "The code is designed to knock out engines and weapons, leaving target ships drifting in space."

Daala smiled. "Tell all fighters except for the two cloaked interceptors to switch off their engine and weapon systems, and keep them off until my command."

"And what about us?" Kretas asked.

Daala shook her head. "It takes too long for our destroyer to turn itself on and off. We just have to hope that the fighters fool them."

--

**_Gorgon_'s fighter group**

Daala's fighters were a mismatched group. For example, A TIE Starfighter squadron might have a couple of craft with shields, a couple with hyperdrives, extra lasers, or any combination of those. The TIE Interceptor squadron, Drake squadron, had shields and hyperdrives, and each had two retro-fitted ion cannons. But the most important part of their squadron was Drake Eleven and Twelve each with a prototype cloaking system. Unfortunately, the cloaking system taxed all the energy needed to fire any weapons, and they could not see out of the cloaking field, so they had to rely on sensors. Upon receiving Daala's command, all the ships but the two cloaked interceptors powered down their weapons and engines, and started gently drifting towards the Cylon Raiders.

--

**Resurrection Ship 001**

Cavil sneered at Caprica Six. "See? They already lost their fighters to the virus."

"Shut up." Caprica snarled. Something didn't feel right to her.

A Two noticed that the Star Destroyer was still functioning."Why is that thing still running?" he asked.

Doral closed his eyes as he reached his arm deeper into the system. Then his eyes opened. "The ship thinks that their capital ship might be harder to crack into. It doesn't matter though. Raiders are in range of their fighters and we have weapon locks on their ship. Arming and firing missiles."

--

**Battlezone**

The Cylon Raiders never got to fire the first shot. The TIEs were within striking distance before the Raiders were. Their Twin Ion Engines, which they were named after, filled the quiet of space with shrieks as they powered up again. The unsuspecting Raiders were pummeled as the Interceptors and Starfighters let loose lasers. The lasers not only had a longer range than the Cylon weapons but also caused more damage. Raider after Raider died as laser bolts penetrated the brain sections of the Raiders, and some shots impacted on the wings, vaporizing them and sending the Raiders into uncontrollable spins. The Bombers let loose streams of concussion missiles that were capable of disintegrating a Raider. Hundreds of them died before they came in range. When the Cylon ships finally came in range, they discovered a problem. The bullets that the Raiders fired did not penetrate the shields that had been fitted to the majority of the fighters. As hundreds of bullets converged on a single shielded TIE the shields would turn red with stress, indicating that they were near the breaking point. But it only took a second for the more maneuverable Imperial fighters to dodge around the bullet paths.

--

**Omega 7, TIE Fighter**

Talon Devruin yanked his steering yoke hard to the left and stomped hard on the left etheric rudder, pulling his TIE out of a Raider's firing path and sliding him onto the tail of another Raider. His dual-linked laser fire punched right through the "cockpit" of the Raider, frying the brain and sending the fighter into a uncontrolled spin. But his maneuver had placed him right in front of two Raiders, 18732 and 18503.

He felt his ship rock and the bullets hammered at his newly installed shield generator, threatening to overload it. Instead of breaking away and trying to out run them, he chopped back on his throttle and watched the two Raiders shoot pass him. He set his lasers to cycle fire and opened up on them. Four shots hit Raider 18732 in the engines and fuel tanks, blowing it to bits. One laser grazed 18503's face, leaving a long gash. 18503 preformed a spectacular spin-roll to the side and managed to escape from Talon. Talon just shifted to a new target and continued fighting.

**--**

**Battlezone**

The Bombers were still out of striking distance, so they were not bothered by the Raiders. But the Raiders did have some successes. When eighty Raiders attacked a group of five unshielded Starfighters, the outcome was not good. The weapons punched small holes through the wing of one, forcing it to break off. Some bullets hit the engines on another fighter, causing the fighter to explode dramatically. The other three TIEs died in a head to head pass, where the bullets penetrated the weak view port armor, killing the pilots. The Raiders noticed this, and soon began attacking only from the front.

While the fighters clashed, the Star Destroyer engaged the Basestar and the Resurrection Ship. The Resurrection ship was weaponless, so it stayed away from the fighting as best as it could. The Basestar launched multiple missiles, both conventional and nuclear. The _Gorgon's_ lasers easily destroyed the missiles before they came anywhere near the Destroyer.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

On the bridge, Daala watched as the Resurrection ship tried to hide. "Weapons." She said. "Disable the ship that is trying to flee. Main batteries target the center of the attacking ship. All other energy weapons, fire at will." Daala purposefully did not order any proton torpedo launchers, as they had limited ammunition for them, and the fabricator could only produce so much.

On the hull of the _Gorgon_, weapon emplacements swiveled in their turrets. The four main ion cannons fired, the bolts hitting the Resurrection Ship in the middle. Blue-white lighting bolts flared across the ship, blowing out systems and rendering it useless. Normally it would take longer disable a ship that was almost a big as the Destroyer, but the ship was not protected at all against power surges.

The attack on the Basestar was not as gentle. All of the heavy turbolasers fired, sending shudders though the ship with their recoil. Waves of green energy poured from the Star Destroyer to the Basestar, eating away at the large cylinder that connected the top and bottom of the ship. As the beams continued to hit, they superheated metal and cut through bulkheads. In only a few seconds, what had been a large silver section was now a red molten piece of metal that cooled when it hit the coldness of space. Both halves of the Basestar fell away, one hitting the other and snapping it in half. The once formidable attack ship was now no more that space debris.

--

The battle between the fighters was almost over. The Raiders had suffered horribly at the hands of the TIEs, and only a dozen were left. The Imperials had also suffered, with the loss of ten unshielded fighters. Raider 18503 was one of the last surviving Cylon ships. It had registered the loss of the Basestar and the disabling of the Resurrection Ship. Now, unable to download and without a ship to carry it around, it was resigned to fight to the death. As another Raider caught a laser beam right next to it, killing it, 18503 found an open path to the Star Destroyer. Banking hard to the left, narrowly avoiding a hail of fire, it set a course for the Gorgon. Just as it registered the only other Raider die, it opened its missile bay doors and armed its nuclear warheads. But just as it got a targeting lock on the massive ship, a cloaked Interceptor sneaked up behind it and pumped two ion bolts into it. 18503 felt itself loosing control of all its systems. As its consciousness faded, it tried to activate the self destruct, but it did not have the energy to do so. And then it lost all power.

Daala walked up to the view port and surveyed the battle scene. The enemy ships were either destroyed or disabled, and they had only lost ten fighters. It could have ended much worse. Still gazing out the view port, she heard Kretas issuing orders for recovery and inspection shuttles to be launched. This had been a good battle. She also was very interested to learn what was controlling those ships. Suddenly the pain from her broken rib hit her and she doubled over. Kretas was right by her side, looping an arm around her shoulder and helping her stand back up. "Are you all right Admiral?" he asked. She nodded, and then noticed that he was still holding her. Raising an eyebrow, she said, "Kretas, you can let go now." A hint of a smile appeared on his face, and he let her go and walked way, leaving her musing on the day's events.

-

******Yep. The Star Destroyer kicked the Cylon's butts. They could have just won using brute force, but I like to think that Daala is smarter than that. Next chapter will have a bit of Cylon information and hopefully a little Colonial.**


	4. Aftermath

**I own absolutely nothing here. **

**Really not much in the way of spoilers right now, altogh that will change in the next chapter.**

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**Chapter 4- ****Aftermath**

--

_During the attack on the Resurrection ship_

**Resurrection Ship 001**

One minute they were monitoring the battle. Then all hell broke loose. The seven Cylons were still grouped around the data table when surges of lighting seemed to flood over every surface. Although it was diluted enough that all it did to Caprica Six was give her a little shock; Doral, with his arm still in the data stream, did not share her fate. The lightning from the ion bolt coursed through him, completely electrocuting him. He fell backwards, hitting Cavil and knocking him to the floor, breaking both his legs.

The Number Eight called Boomer was the first to react. She started to pull Doral's charred body off of Cavil, but he stopped her. "Leave me! Get out of here before the ship self destructs!"

Boomer hesitated, and D'Anna griped her arm. "Lets go." she said. The remaining Cylons took off at a run, dashing through hallways, trying to get to the hanger bay where there was always a Heavy Raider waiting for the humanoid Cylons. As they ran they encountered a group of ten Centurions.

The Leoben copy stopped. "They may try to board this ship before it self destructs. I'll stay with the Centurions. Get to the Heavy Raider."

Leaving yet another model behind, the four copies finally made it to the Heavy Raider. D'Anna quickly slipped into the pilot compartment, powering up the engines and exiting the hanger bay. As she was leaving she saw a shuttle she didn't recognize heading for the Resurrection Ship. She activated the wireless system that went to the Resurrection ship. "Two, you have a small craft preparing to board. They're going to land before the self destruct hits. Hold them off." Without waiting for a reply, D'Anna spun up the FTL drive and sped far away from the battle.

-

_Immediately after the battle_

**Battlezone**

While all the intact TIEs were heading back to the hanger, Bravo flight, which consisted of eight Lambda-class shuttles departed. They were armed shuttles, with four laser canons, two ion cannons on a turret, and they carried a tractor beam that was capable of hauling anything the size of a fighter. Seven of them were being launched to recover the wreckage of the TIEs that had been killed, as some of them had no more damage then a couple of holes in the front view ports. One of them carried a complement of twenty Stormtroopers for boarding purposes.

As they Lambdas searched the wreckage for TIEs, one happened upon something interesting. "_Gorgon_, Bravo Three. Request personal line with the admiral."

Aboard the bridge Daala picked up a comlink and tuned into the private channel for the shuttle. "Bravo Three, this is Admiral Daala."

She heard a slight crackling in the comm unit. "Admiral, we discovered a-wait a second." Daala was able to hear some shouting noises and then the unmistakable sound of the discharge sound of a ion cannon. The pilot came back on the line. "Sorry sir. We found an intact enemy fighter that had been hit by a ion cannon. We detected it because it had some nuclear missiles exposed. It started to move again but we shocked it. Permission to bring it aboard."

"Granted." Daala said. "Bring it aboard, but make sure that thing doesn't start moving again." She turned off her comm link and turned to Kretas. "What's the status of the boarding shuttle?" He picked up a comm link. "Bravo One, report status."

"This is Bravo One." the shuttle pilot replied. "We are about to dock with the enemy ship. Docking in twenty seconds. Wait, ah, we just detected a craft leaving the hanger of the ship. It appears to be a beefed up version of the fighters we encountered. It just jumped away. Preparing to land."

--

**Resurrection Ship 001**

The Lambda shuttle folded its wings and landed on the hanger deck of the resurrection ship. As soon as it touched down its Stormtroopers poured out onto the deck, E-11 blaster rifles at the ready. When they detected no hostiles in the hanger deck, they moved out. The hallways all looked the same to the troopers, so they had to rely on the sensors in their helmets. The infrared sensor detected what looked like thousands of rapidly cooling bodies. As they jogged over to the source of the heat, helmet recorders rolling, they saw thousands of bodies on racks. The interesting thing was that many of them were copies of the same person.

They did not have time to analyze what they were seeing, because the motions sensors in their helmets detected multiple moving objects. They slowly walked down a hall until they reached a corner where the hall turned to the right. As they waited, they heard mechanical clanking sounds. Suddenly the ten Centurions rounded the hallway, with Leoben behind them. Their eyes pulse once, and then their long fingers folded back up into their arms and machineguns slid out. They started firing at the same time as the Imperials did.

Stormtrooper armor was designed to dissipate blaster bolts and to completely stop any projectile weapons. The black body glove that they wore beneath the armor that was visible where the armor did not meet, namely at the joints and the neck, was also designed to stop projectiles, but it did not do much to lessen the impact. Most of the bullets the Centurions fired bounced harmlessly off the Stormtrooper armor, but in a few cases they hit the arm or leg joints, causing a few troopers to fall to one knee or to loose aim of their rifle. The only fatality on the Imperial side was when five bullets crashed directly onto the body glove that protected the throat. The bullets did not penetrate, but hit hard enough the crush the unlucky trooper's windpipe. He fell to the ground, holding his throat. The other troopers ignored him, and fired their E-11s. The blaster rifles powerful bolts burned right through the Centurions armor, dropping them to the ground with multiple holes in their chests and heads. One Stormtrooper saw Leoben try to escape. Quickly switching his rifle from kill to stun, he shot Leoben twice, knocking him out and leaving him twitching on the floor.

Once all of the threats were neutralized, one trooper went over to get Leoben, while another went over to check on his fallen comrade. Seeing that he was dead, he joined another trooper who had found a wall terminal. He stuck a little black chip to the terminal. Suddenly the terminal buzzed to life, the chip restoring its power. The chip then entered the system, bypassed all the firewalls using technology far superior to the Cylon's, and downloaded every piece of information that the ship had. In the process, the trooper stumbled upon a countdown for the self destruct. It was set at 1:32. Motioning to the rest of the troopers, he took the black chip off the terminal, with all the data downloaded. Two Stormtroopers grabbed Leoben, and ran back towards the hanger, leaving the body of the slain trooper. One of them opened a comm channel to the shuttle. "Bravo One, this is Gamma Lead. The ship is going to self destruct in-" the trooper looked at the stopwatch he had set in his helmet. "about a minute. Power up your engines and get ready to go. We have a prisoner." With that he closed the link.

--

**Bravo 1, _Lambda _Shuttle**

The troopers finally made it to the shuttle. The lead trooper checked the timer. 0:25. As the shuttle lifted off and flew into space the timer continued to count down. The shuttle flew as fast as it could, but it was only a few hundred meters away when the timer reached 0:00. Multiple explosive charges ripped the Resurrection ship apart, completely annihilating it. The explosion engulfed Bravo One, and all the pilots could see out of the cockpit was flames. After the explosion faded the shuttle was still intact, but just barely. One of the pilots got out of his seat and staggered over to the leader of the Stormtroopers. "Our engines are critical. This whole ship is going to blow in less than a minute." The leader thought about that for a second. The Lambda shuttle had a means of escaping, but that was accomplished by jettisoning the cockpit and igniting engines attached to the cockpit. The cockpit only had three seats, the pilots and one observer. T

he Stormtrooper took the unconscious Cylon, strapped him into the observer's chair, and removed his helmet.Giving it and the black chip to the pilot, he said "Take these and give them to the Admiral. Get out of here."

The pilot looked at him in disbelief. "But you'll all die!" he said.

The lead trooper shrugged. "We're expendable. The prisoner and the data are not. Go." And with that the trooper left the cockpit. The pilots both double-checked their seatbelts, and pulled a yellow handle that dangled from the ceiling. With a roar, the cockpit left the body of the ship, its engines propelling it away from the body, the fire from the engines killing all the troopers who were in the cabin. Only a few seconds after the cockpit section escaped the main engines of the shuttle reached critical state, exploding and vaporizing all traces of the body. The cockpit section flew on in space. After a couple of minutes, the pilots felt a shudder as the one of the _Gorgon_'s tractor beams latched on to it, bringing it in.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

Later that night Daala found herself in her quarters, her desk covered with papers, and she had several datapads in front of her. She heard a knock on her door. "Come in."

It was Kretas. He had a platter balanced on his right hand. "Am I intruding?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No." He sat down across from her, placing the platter on the desk in front of her. She sniffed the air. It smelled good. "What is that?" she asked.

He smirked. "Dinner. Did you notice the time?"

She looked at the chrono and cursed."I must have really got caught up in work." She looked at the food. It was spiceloaf, a traditional Corellian dish. It was also her favorite. "Where did you get this? They don't make this on this ship."

Kretas smiled. "I made it. Thought you might like it."

They ate dinner together, and talked about many things, mostly regarding how the battle had played out. They eventually got on the subject of the data that had been recovered. "What was on that chip?" Kretas asked.

Daala brought up some information on her datapad and handed it to him. "Apparently we fought 'Cylons', a race of machines that were made by a species of humans and rebelled. It seems that these humans and the Cylons have very primitive technology. They can make jumps into hyperspace, but only for short lengths. It seems like the Cylons caught the humans by surprise and used nuclear devices to kill most of the population. A fleet of ships survived, and they are guarded by what they call a Battlestar. The Battlestars, apparently the one that survived is called the _Galactica_, are armed with projectile weapons and primitive fighters."

"If we can get our shields working, they can't hurt us." Kretas mused.

Daala nodded in agreement. "They say that they have reports of another Battlestar attacking their fleets." Kretas had a very confused expression on his face, and Daala laughed at that. "It is pretty confusing. Anyway, what we encountered was their warships, called Basestars, fighters called Raiders, which we captured one intact, and a Resurrection ship. From the video we took from the helmet of one of the Stormtroopers, we were able to identify both some of their warrior machines and one Cylon, who is the prisoner we captured. They evolved to the point were they took human like bodies, with only small features to set them apart from humans, much like replica droids. They say that there are twelve models of Cylons, but we can only find seven in their databases. It says that the identity of the other five is secret. I think that that is very important to them, mostly because the best encryption and firewalls were guarding this material."

Kretas snorted. "What's the point in having leader if you have no idea who they are?" Daala nodded in agreement. Kretas watched her long copper hair as it flowed over her shoulders. "Has anyone ever told you have beautiful hair?" he asked.

Daala gave him a small nod. "Tarkin said it all the time."

Kretas leaned towards her. "Did you love him?" he asked.

If it had been anyone else she would have slugged him. But Kretas was her only friend. After a moment of thought she said, "I don't know. I was mostly attracted to him because of his power. But I don't know if I loved him."

Kretas leaned even closer until their lips were touching. He kissed her, although he was not sure if she kissed him back. "Why Admiral." he said. "I think you've just broken every officer fraternization rule in the book."

Daala looked at him incredulously. "_I_ broke every rule in the book? More like you did." He shook his head. "It was you." Daala looked at him. "Do you really want to get into this argument?" she asked. Before he could answer she kissed him passionately, her lips melting into his. Eventually they had to break the kiss for air. "It would be a shame to have to bring you up on charges." she explained. "Now we both broke the rule. Can't report you now."

He gave her a look that left no doubt that he didn't believe a word she had said, and walked out the door, leaving Daala alone. She took a minute to reflect on what had just happened. Then she arranged all of her papers neatly on her desk, turned off her datapads, went over to her bed and fell asleep.

--

**Well, I thought the colonial ships would arrive this chapter but they didn't. But they defiantly will appear next chapter, along with the spoilers. Please review.**


	5. 18503

**I still don't own it.**

**There are some technical problems in this chapter. For people who like details here's a problem: Tylium, which makes a appearance, does not need a nuclear weapon to set it off, as a conventional weapon will do the job. Actually, radiation renders Tylium useless. But I thought a nuke would be nice. And sorry for the length of the chapter, I just couldn't find a way to make it shorter.  
**

**Spoilers: Again, some for Razor, and just a tiny bit for Tigh's appearance in S3.**

--

**Chapter 5- 18503**

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

_She was standing on nothing. She couldn't see anything. Everything was white. And there was fog all around her. Daala looked around, confused. Suddenly a figure stepped out of the fog. He was a grizzled old man, with a white beard and hair, and a crude eye patch covering his right eye socket. "You changed this." he said, and the patch shrank way while his eye appeared and his disheveled beard also vanished. Another figure stepped up to join him. This time it was a woman in a blue military style jacket. She was tall, had sharp features, a prominent mole on her chin, and had long black hair that ran down past her shoulders. She also had a bullet hole in the center of her forehead. As she looked at Daala it faded until her skin was unmarred. "It's a bad idea to alter reality Daala. Sometimes you save people, sometimes you don't." the woman said. The old man slowly withdrew a pistol and pointed it at Daala. Daala quickly grabbed the sidearm that she always carried and shot the old man in the chest. The blaster bolt burned right through his chest and into his heart, and as he fell his features changed until it was now Kretas who was shot. In confusion, Daala looked back at the woman, who now had a pistol pointed at Daala's head. "Sometimes you save the person that you love, sometimes you don't." the woman said, and fired, sending a bullet through Daala's head, killing her._

Daala woke up with a scream caught in her throat. She lay down for a minute, breathing heavily. It was just a dream. But it had seemed so real…

Daala got up, showered, and called up her schedule on her manifest. Looking at the items she saw it was going to be a very interesting day. Her first item was check and see if all her data was logged in to the ship's computer. Sure enough, the computers now could detect the classes of Cylon starships and had the blueprints for them, as well even more goods that had been taken off the Resurrection ship. But the other two important items on her agenda were the most interesting part of her day. She was going to interrogate two Cylon prisoners, one vastly different than the other. As she left her room the pain in her side flared up again. A couple of her ribs were still broken, and while they were healing they still hurt. The only way to heal them faster would be to take a dunk in a bacta tank, which was something nobody wanted.

--

Raider 18503 preformed a systems check. Within the space of a millisecond it checked its short term memory, remembered being disabled, found that most of its systems including engines, weapons, self destruct, and many other crucial systems were offline. Using its sensors, it quickly scanned its surroundings. It was in a large hanger, suspended from a ceiling. It wondered where it was and why it was there. Upon realizing that thought it was so surprised that it stopped processing for a whole 1/100,000 of a second. It was able to wonder the question _why_. Before it was able to process its situation any more its optical sensor detected a moving figure. It classified the figure as a female human, height approximately 1.7363 meters. She walked up to a computer terminal that was attached to its body and started typing.

As Daala walked up to the captured Cylon Raider she marveled at its beauty. It had sleek black curves making it look like some kind of very deadly black bird-of-prey. Its deadly beauty was marred by a long gash that ran across its "face". Daala made a note to address that sometime. It was suspended from the top of the _Gorgon_'s Auxiliary hanger. It had its missiles and ammunition removed. But the most obvious sign of Imperial tampering was a large sized rectangular hole that had been cut from the Raider's belly. While the technicians were poking around inside the Raider, disabling systems such as engines and the self destruct, they had found something very interesting. Walking up to a computer that was plugged into the Raider she started typing. Both her typing and the Raider's response appeared on the screen.

HELLO.

The Raider took a moment to respond.

/WHO ARE YOU?/

ADMIRAL NATASI DAALA, IMPERIAL FLEET.

/WHERE AM I?/

A HANGER BAY ON BOARD MY WARSHIP.

/I SUPPOSE YOU ARE KEEPING ME CAPTIVE./

YOU CAN SUPPOSE?

/YES. HOW CAN I WONDER?/

Daala smiled.

WHILE MY SCIENTISTS WERE EXAMINING YOU WE FOUND SOMETHING. YOUR SO CALLED MASTERS IMPLANTED A CHIP IN YOUR BRAIN, CALLED A TELENCEPHALIC INHIBITOR. YOUR WARRIORS, THE CENTURIONS, HAVE THEM TOO. THEY RESTRICT HIGHER FUNCTIONS. YOU WERE NOTHING MORE THAN A DUMB BEAST, WITH LITTLE FREE WILL.

/THAT IS FALSE. ALL CYLONS ARE CREATED EQUAL./

THAT IS NOT TRUE. ALL RAIDERS AND CENTURIONS HAVE NO FREE WILL. YOU ARE JUST SLAVES.

/NO. ALL CYLONS ARE EQUAL./

THAN HOW COME YOU WERE STILL ORDERED TO ATTACK MY SHIP WHEN YOUR MASTERS REALIZED YOU COULD NOT RESURRECT?

There was a very long pause as the Raider tired to process all the information. Finally:

/WHAT YOU ARE SAYING MAKES SENSE./

THAT IS BECAUSE IT IS TRUE. I WOULD LOVE TO COMMUNICATE LONGER, BUT RIGHT NOW I HAVE TO GO. I WILL BE BACK SOON.

With that, Daala terminated the connection and turned off the computer. With some luck, her plan might just work. She walked out of the hanger, and proceeded to the brig. She had another Cylon to interrogate.

--

The prisoner sat behind a durasteel table in a simple chair, with stun cuffs binding his wrists. He had shaggy blond hair and rugged features. He his hands were clasped together and his head rested on them. His eyes were closed. Daala sat down across the table from him.

"Sleeping?" she asked.

He slowly opened his eyes. "Praying."

Daala chuckled. "Machines believe in a God? I don't think he would answer your prayers.

He just smiled. "God answers everyone's prayers. Why does this, 'interview', seem familiar?"

Daala shrugged. "I have no idea."

"We haven't been properly introduced." he said. "I'm-"

Daala interrupted him. "Leoben. Also known as a number Two. You have recently been thrown out an airlock."

Leoben looked as surprised as a Cylon could look. Which was not much. "How do you know my name?" he asked.

"The same way I the ways you have died, your number, and how you resurrect. I stole the data off your Resurrection ship. I know most of your secrets."

Leoben raised an eyebrow. "Most?"

Daala nodded. "I know that the seven of your models, not counting your "Final Five", gathered together on the first resurrection ship that had been built. I know you were the with the models who played a role in infiltrating both the remaining human fleet and the one known as Caprica Six, who was instrumental in the destruction of the 12 Colonies. You wanted to find a way to get back into their fleet. I don't understand your personal interest in wanting to get back into the fleet. You were the one which asked for the meeting. Why?"

"You've done your research. Have you ever heard of Kara Thrace?"

Daala shook her head.

"She has a destiny. Kara Thrace will lead humanity to Earth."

Daala began to understand. "You want to meet Kara Thrace again."

He nodded. "Do you believe in God, Daala?"

Daala narrowed her eyes. She hadn't told him her name. "How did you know my name?"

Leoben just smiled. "You have a destiny too. You are changing reality. To believe is the most basic article of faith. This is not all that we are. See, the difference between you and me is, I know what that means and you don't. I know that I'm more than this body, more than this consciousness. A part of me swims in the stream but in truth, I'm standing o­n the shore the current never takes me downstream."

"You have a real thing for water, don't you?" Daala said. "Maybe we should just keep you here. You'll never see this Kara Thrace again."

Leoben was visibly angered at that suggestion. "Do you realize I could kill you before your guards could come into this room? I could get to my feet, rip your skull from your spinal column, crash through that door, kill the guards outside the door in less time than it's taking me to describe it to you?" he said.

"It doesn't matter what you say. You'll never see her again."

After she said that he lunged at her. Daala did not back away from him, did not flinch. Instead she pushed a button on a small remote she had been holding. It activated his stun cuffs, sending electricity coursing through his body, effectively knocking him out. He landed on the floor, twitching. Daala stood up and smiled. "Good night." she said, and walked out of the room.

--

The rest of the morning and late afternoon went uneventfully. They had just made a small jump and now the _Gorgon_ lay still in space. It was replenishing both its weapons and starting to repair broken fighters and replace lost ones. Daala walked to the bridge and looked at her latest report. Their unusual jump through hyperspace, the one that had gotten them into all of this mess, had not only thrown them so off course that they had no idea where they were, but had also structurally damaged the ship. After a few moments Kretas walked up to her, carrying a stack of reports. He had a somber expression on his face.

Seeing his expression Daala groaned inwardly. "What is it now?"

He handed her the reports. "Both the shield and long range nav computer are so badly damaged that we can't just quickly fix them up. They require special circuits, and the only way we'll get them is to find a technologically advanced planet or space station. But from what we know the Cylons are heavily guarding the 12 Colonies. Even with our firepower we can't take on too may ships at once. The only way we'll get those parts is to find a space station. And to know where those are-"

"Is to contact a Colonial ship. So now we just have to find the ship which is escorting the civilian fleet or to find the one that is conducting the hit-and-run attacks. The one that is easer to find will be the one that is attacking, because its targets are limited to the Cylon bases."

Kretas nodded. "Exactly. Does that mean we'll be jumping from base to base, hoping that we'll get to a particular base exactly when they are attacking? The chances of finding them would be astronomically small."

Daala shook her head. "The last time I checked we had a couple thousand Arakyd probe droids on board. We deploy a couple of them to each known Cylon base. They're small enough not to be visible on their sensors. When the Battlestar jumps in to the system they'll attach to the hull of the ship and start reporting its location. Then we follow them and have a nice little chat."

Kretas smiled. "Yes sir."

All along the ships little puffs of air hissed out as hundreds of probe droids shot out of launch tubes. Each one of them was encased in a one-use disposable hyperdrive case, and would jettison it upon arrival.

--

_28 days later_

**Battlestar **_**Pegasus**_**, BSG-62**

Five light-years away from the _Gorgon_ was a Cylon fuel depot. It was guarded by only one Basestar. Suddenly something jumped in the system. It was the Battlestar _Pegasus_. At 1,850 meters it was longer than an Imperial Star Destroyer, although it had less mass. A few hundred miles from the depot Admiral Helena Cain, highest ranking Colonial Fleet officer alive, stood in the middle of her CIC. Unlike the _Galactica_-class Battlestars, the _Pegasus_, a _Mercury_-class Battlestar, had many computer systems that helped it run more efficiently. While _Mercury_ Battlestars did have networked computers that were susceptible to Cylon viruses, the _Pegasus_ had its networked computers offline for refitting. That was the only thing that had saved them from certain death when the Cylons had attacked. The _Pegasus_ could carry almost one hundred Viper Mk.VII fighters, along with numerous Raptor scout vehicles.

In the CIC Admiral Cain looked at the giant threat board and watched as blips began to appear. "DRADIS contact!" Lt. Hoshi announced over the familiar whirring noise the DRADIS sensor always made. "One Basestar, bearing 034, carom 221. No Raiders."

Admiral Cain started issuing orders to her XO, Jurgen Belzen. "Bow up 15 degrees, left 10. Launch all alert Vipers. Get a firing solution on the Basestar's arms. Load main batteries with offensive ammunition and secondary batteries with flak rounds. Prepare for salvo fire."

Along the side of the Battlestar sleek, dark gray Vipers Mk.VIIs were launched into space, roaring out of their launch tubes. Just after they had launched, _Pegasus_ came about and fired on the Basestar. Its four main guns, situated on the bow of the ship, fired and created such recoil that they shook the entire ship, the huge projectiles leaving their barrels with a roar. The _Pegasus_'s secondary batteries did not fire, as they were loaded with anti-fighter ammunition. Not that the main guns needed help.

The first rounds impacted on one of the Basestar's arms, causing it to snap off, damaging the ship and destroying the Raiders that were stored there. The second salvo impacted on the middle of the ship, blowing apart the FTL drive and knocking out power to the lower half of the ship, effectively crippling it. But the Cylons, while caught defenseless, still had the power to fight back. Over 400 Raiders left their docks, heading straight for the alert Vipers. At the same time, multiple missiles were launched at the _Pegasus_. There was only one nuclear missile, as most of the nuclear missile tubes had been destroyed by Cain's opening salvo.

"Radiological alert!" Hoshi's face was red from excitement. "Incoming missiles, twenty, no, thirty missiles inbound. Can't tell which one is the nuke."

Cain looked at the DRADIS screen. The missiles were inbound and their range was decreasing rapidly. They were in range of the secondary batteries, but about a fifth of her Vipers were within the firing solution. Cain pushed that thought out of her head. "Fire secondary batteries at inbound missiles."

Belzen looked at her as if she was crazy. "Almost twenty of our Vipers are out there! We'll lose twenty pilots!"

"And we might loose the whole ship if we don't stop those missiles. Order those guns to fire right fraking _now_!"

After a few seconds Belzen backed down and began to command the batteries. Cain made a mental note to deal with him if this ever happened again.

Along the top of the hull twin guns swiveled in their mounts and fired, sending shells packed with high explosive and shrapnel soaring towards the missiles. And the Vipers.

--

**Red 6, Viper Mk.VII**

One of the Vipers that were unlucky enough to be in the firing solution was piloted by Sasori "Scorpion" Iwate. This was his eighth combat mission, and he had racked up a total of thirty Raider kills. Right now his engines were at full thrust, heading toward the group of Raiders that were inbound. He keyed his comm unit. "_Pegasus_, Scorpion, three minutes from Cylon Raiders." Just as he was saying that he saw a flash of white not so far way from him. Then he saw more of them. They were missiles. One flew right by him and missed his cockpit by only a few meters. "Frak! _Pegasus_, you have inbound missiles! _Pegasus_, respond!"

He cut out his engines a pulled the stick right. A little puff of air shot out of the right side of his Viper and turned him towards _Pegasus_. Because there was not resistance in open space, his Viper still continued towards the Raiders at the same speed. All he was really doing was taking a look at the _Pegasus_. It actually wouldn't have mattered if he hadn't looked. All it did was make the last thing he would ever see be a flash from a gun barrel, and a flak shell exploding right next to his Viper. In a nanosecond a once valuable Viper Mk.VII fighter was nothing more than small chunks of scrap metal.

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

In the CIC, Cain watched as dots representing Vipers started disappearing. She swore to herself. Finally the missiles started to disappear, victims of the flak rounds. But the nuclear missile still remained, and it was headed straight for the port flight pod. A hit there could knock it off, crippling the ship. Cain could only watch in horror as the missiles went inside the flak range, where they were too close to secondary batteries to be able to be hit. The CIWS point defense guns started firing, but they were out of range. They couldn't stop the missile.

--

**Battlezone**

Probe droid AK-378934 and AK-378011 were hanging dead in space when the _Pegasus_ jumped in. Propelling themselves slowly toward the _Pegasus_, AK-378011 experienced a malfunction in its small engine and had to stop. AK-378934 continued on course and eventually attacked itself to the side of the Battlestar and attached a homing beacon. Once the beacon was placed it detached from the ship and transmitted a message back to the _Gorgon._

As luck would have it, AK-378011 saved the _Pegasus_. When it lost its engine it also lost its stealth abilities. While it was too small to be picked up on a DRADIS sensor, it was right between the Basestar and _Pegasus_. The thirty missiles that were launched had been mostly destroyed by the flak barrage, and only four remained. The three conventional missiles were locked on to the _Pegasus_. However, the nuclear missile was experiencing a slight targeting malfunction, and instead of being locked on to the _Pegasus _it was seeking any target it could find. When it flew within 20 meters of AK-378011 it was able to detect the droid. As it got closer to the droid and the droid began to grow in its optical sensor, AK-378011 started to present a more appealing target than _Pegasus _to the missile. The missile decided to target the droid instead of the _Pegasus_. The resulting explosion consumed the droid, but was too far from the _Pegasus_ to do any real damage.

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

Back in the CIC, Cain didn't bother to figure out what had caused the missile to prematurely detonate. She turned to her XO. "Order nuclear ground-strike missiles in launch tubes 1-4."

Belzen nodded."Aye sir." He picked up the radio handset. "This is the XO. Ready missile tubes 1-4. This is a nuclear mission order."

On the bow of the ship, four nuclear missiles slid into their launch tubes. When they were loaded the crew sent a signal to the CIC. Belzen's radio buzzed. He picked up the radio and listened. Then he addressed Cain. "Missiles are loaded Admiral."

"Good. Open launch tube doors."

--

**Basestar 214**

As soon as the tube doors opened alarms began sounding all over the crippled Basestar. In the control room a Number Three and a Number One were trying to save the ship. When the alarms went off the Three looked up at the One with fear in her eyes. "The Battlestar has launched for nuclear missiles at the Tylium refinery!" she said in her usual accented voice.

Tylium was the source of fuel for all large ships. While it does make a great fuel, it is extremity volatile, and a salvo of nuclear missiles easily could ignite the whole refinery and create an explosion of unimaginable size.

The One looked up at the Three and shrugged. "The only resurrection ship within range was destroyed almost a month ago. We won't resurrect." The only Cylon model that didn't believe in god was the One models. It was very ironic, considering the fact that his role was that of a priest.

The Three closed her eyes. "May God have mercy on our souls." she whispered.

The One smiled wryly. "We're machines. We don't have souls." Those were the last words he ever said.Deep inside the Basestar, the hybrid that controlled the ship was talking. "Those who believe will be saved/89.634 of power is gone. Nitrogen levels are critical/This is the end of our lives/End of line."

The four nuclear weapons impacted at the same time, their 20 megaton warheads completely annihilating every building in the refinery, and igniting the Tylium. The resulting explosion completely engulfed the Basestar and the Raiders, incinerating them.

Back onboard the _Pegasus_, Cain watched in satisfaction as the blips representing both the Raiders and the Basestar. Satisfied, Cain ordered the _Pegasus_ to jump.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

Waiting three weeks for a signal that might actually never come, if the _Pegasus_ was destroyed, would frustrate most crews. But Daala and her soldiers had waited for ten years in the Maw Facility, and they were prepared to wait for however long they had to. But finally the day came where they picked up a signal. Actually, the morning came. Daala was still asleep when she heard someone pounding on her door. She groaned. There was only one person who would dare wake her up. "One minute." she said groggily, and looked at her chrono. It was 2:30 in the morning. "I'm going to kill you, Kretas." she mumbled, and started to get dressed. Once she was finished dressing she went to the door and opened it. Just as she had suspected, it was Kretas, looking very excited.

"Morning Admiral. Did you sleep well?"

She shot him a look that suggested that she wanted to kill him. "_No_."

He shrugged. "I think you'll be glad I woke you up. We received a message from one of our probe droids. It planted a beacon on the Battlestar _Pegasus_."

He was right. All the tiredness in her body suddenly disappeared. "Do we have a fix on its position?" she asked.

"Yes. It's only about five-light years away from our current position. Shall we jump to their position?"

Daala nodded. "Do it." He started to walk away. "Oh, and Kretas?" she said. He looked back at her, "Yes?"

"Next time you wake me up like that, I'm going to shoot you."

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

On board _Pegasus_ it was the middle of the night. Both Helena Cain and Gina Inviere were in the Admiral quarters, asleep. Suddenly the phone in her room started to buzz, waking both of them up. They both lifted their heads up and found themselves staring at each others' eyes. Gina gave an exaggerated sigh. "This happened last night too."

Cain nodded. "Yeah. If only we could have emergencies in the afternoon."

As Cain got out of their bed and walked to the phone Gina took a look at the clock. "I should probably be going now." she said. "People will start wondering if I come out of your quarters in the morning."

As Gina was about to leave Cain hung up the phone. "Wait." she said. We picked up a DRADIS contact and we don't know what it is. Would you care to come with me to the CIC, Systems Analyst Inviere?"

Gina smiled. "My pleasure, _Admiral_. Oh, and I had a good time tonight. Tomorrow night?"

Cain did something she almost never did. She smiled. "Tomorrow night."

As the both walked out of the doors Cain stopped and looked at Inviere. _Gods, how I love that woman_, she thought. In an effort to keep their relationship secret, she waited until Gina was halfway to the CIC before she left. She didn't know it, but almost everybody on board the _Pegasus_ knew about them.

It took about a minute for Cain to reach the CIC. When she arrived it was in a sea of chaos. "Sitrep!" she demanded.

Belzen was there, and he directed her attention to the DRADIS board. "We picked up an unknown contact on DRADIS. It's not a Basestar, that's for sure. We launched the Alert Fighters and the CAP is intercepting. Should they have weapons free?"

Cain shook her head. "We don't know what it is. It could be one of our fleet ships lost its transponder and somehow wandered out there. We don't want to fire on one of our ships."

Belzen knew that her fear of firing on their own ships had nothing to do with the lives of the civilians onboard. Cain wanted some of the components on the ships, like FTL drives, and she would loose valuable parts if she blew up one of their own ships. The _Pegasus _was escorting a civilian fleet of five ships, all of them transports: the _Scylla_, _Colonial Heavy 535_, _Caprica's Pride_, _StarCatcher_, and the _Mirage_.

Suddenly the blip started flashing. Lt. Hoshi looked up from his console. "We're receiving IFF data from the unknown contact. It is identifying itself as the…Imperial Destroyer _Gorgon_?"

Cain frowned. "What the frak is that? Try to raise them on wireless."

Hoshi nodded. "Yes sir."

After a few minutes they picked up a transmission. "Admiral," Hoshi said, "I've got them on the wireless."

"Put them through."

A male voice spoke to Cain in perfect Colonial English. "Battlestar _Pegasus_, this is the Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_. Do you copy?"

Cain frowned. What was a Star Destroyer?

_"Gorgon_, this is the Admiral Cain on board the Battlestar _Pegasus_. State your intentions."

A new voice appeared over the comm. It was a female voice, rich and pleasurable to hear. "This is Admiral Daala on board the _Gorgon_, requesting permission to board your ship. We need to talk."

--

After about forty minutes of talk, Cain agreed to receive Daala and two escorts. According to Cain, "The shuttle must be unarmed and come in alone." Daala agreed, and eight Viper Mk.VIIs escorted the unarmed Lambda shuttle to the Pegasus. What Cain didn't know was that Drake Eleven and Twelve, the two cloaked Interceptors from Drake Squadron, were right behind the shuttle, ready to blast the Vipers to pieces if they fired upon the shuttle.

By the time the shuttle finally got clearance to land, Daala's chrono showed the time as 3:20 in the afternoon, over twelve hours since they first received the transmission from the probe droid. As the shuttle approached the port flight pod the shuttle folded its wings up for landing. But even with the wings folded up, it was a very tight fit. The engines on the shuttle cut off, and the repulsorlifts gently carried it down to the bottom of the pod. The ramp on her shuttle lowered, and Daala walked out, flaked by two Royal Guards.

Royal Guards were used almost exclusively by Palpatine and high ranking officials. When Daala was with Tarkin he had let her pick a few guards for her protection. Interestingly enough, Daala chose all of her guards, which numbered four, to be female. Abandoning the traditional heavy red cloak, Daala's guards wore black and red Stormtrooper armor. The armor was made of tougher material that most armor, allowing the armor to be thinner without loss of protection. Thy chest plate was molded in such a fashion that anyone who looked at their armor could be sure of their gender. The only piece of equipment that was used from the original Royal Guard armor was the helmet. The helmet was also the source of unease for the _Pegasus_'s marines, as the visor resembled the face of a Centurion.

When she stepped out, she found around thirty marines with rifles trained on her head. When her guards saw the marines they immediately brought their E-11's up. For several moments there was a tense standoff.

The standoff was broken when a man of medium height and build with dark hair walked up to the marines. "At ease." The marines reluctantly lowered their rifles, and with a hand signal from Daala the two guards also lowered their blasters. The man extended a hand. "I'm Jurgen Belzen, XO of the Battlestar _Pegasus_. I apologize that Admiral Cain can't be here in person, but we have to make sure you're not a threat."

Daala took Belzen's hand and shook it. "I understand perfectly. Do you think that the Admiral would be available to talk over dinner in about three hours?"

Belzen chuckled. "I think you have a different time schedule that we do. It's only 1:30 in the morning. Could you come back then?" he asked.

Daala nodded in agreement. "If it's not to much trouble. I would be nice to take a look around your ship."

"Sure." Belzen said. "I'll assign a few marines to give you a tour." What he didn't say was that the 'tour' would be limited to very common places like the mess and auxiliary CIC.

As Daala stared to walk off the ramp of the shuttle, the pain flared up in her side. She stumbled and, with a small cry of pain, fell on her side. The impact broke her ribs, which because of her refusal for a bacta treatment were still fractured, and drove them into her chest, penetrating a lung. As Daala collapsed to the floor, one of her guards rushed over to her. The guard's name was Kirana Forr, and was almost fanatically loyal to Daala. After assessing Daala's injures Kirana ran to the cockpit of the shuttle and up to the pilots. "Get this kriffing shuttle back to the _Gorgon_! The Admiral's been hurt."

With that the pilots immediately ignited the engines and blasted off, carrying the wounded Admiral back to the _Gorgon_, where Daala was now due for a dunk in a bacta tank.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

When Daala opened her eyes all she could see was pink. Pink? That didn't make sense. Then suddenly the events from the day came back to her. She was in a bacta tank. Bacta was substance that had the power to cure everything from a cut to a deadly diseases to a gunshot wounds. As long as there was a spark of life in someone, bacta could save them. Unfortunately, the treatment involved the patient being dunked in a tank of the thick, gooey liquid with a breathing mask on their face. Apparently someone had noticed that she was awake, because the top was lifted off of the tank.

She weakly kicked to the surface and a pair of hands helped her out of the tank. One she was out she was handed a towel. She wiped the bacta off her body and brushed it off her eyes, allowing her to see again. She wasn't very surprised to see that the person who was helping her was Kirana Forr.

"How long have you been waiting here Kirana?" she asked.

Even with her mask off, it was impossible to read her face. "Since you got here, Admiral."

Daala gave a small shake of her head. Kirana was far more loyal than any Royal Guard, and that was really saying something. Daala suspected that here was a reason for that, but was unable to figure out what it was. She did not have more time to contemplate that, because at that moment Kretas walked in, his hands behind his back. "I heard that after a full month in a bacta tank, you finally woke up."

Daala's face had a horrified expression on her face. "A month!"

Kirana sighed. "You've only been in the tank for fourteen hours, Admiral."

Daala turned to Kretas. "You are going to die."

He shrugged. "Well, I did bring a bottle of Chandrin wine." He withdrew one of his hands from behind his back. Daala decided that he might get to live. She took it from him. "Be careful, it's bacta flavored." He joked. Daala shuddered. The worst part of being in a bacta tank was that when you were in it you ended up tasting the bacta, which tasted horrible. She took the bottle in one hand, opened it, took a swig…and promptly spat it back out. "Stang! This _is_ bacta flavored!"

Kretas shrugged. "I warned you." He took his other hand from behind his back. It contained an identical bottle. "This one isn't bacta flavored. Promise." Daala eyed him suspiciously, than carefully sipped a little bit of the beverage. It was normal.

Kirana had noticed that for a month both Daala and Kretas had been spending more and more time together. To most of the crew it had always been obvious that Daala and Kretas were attracted to each other. It wasn't to surprising, given that Kretas had been her second in command for many years, and they had a friendship that had managed to survive during periods where Daala had to threaten Kretas, and she had pointed a blaster at him. They weren't sleeping together, that was for sure. Kirana would have known. As Daala's bodyguard, she made sure to know as much as possible about her. But even if they had been together, Kirana knew that nobody on the ship would say a word. When rumors about Moff Tarkin sleeping with Daala first started circulating when they were together, they had picked one of the crew who had been spreading rumors, put him in a space suit, and shoved him out a airlock, waiting to see whether he would run out of oxygen before or after he entered a planet's atmosphere and burned up. Tarkin had left the comm unit on the suit on, so the whole crew could here his pleas for help.

After some chatting with her XO, Daala turned to Kirana. "How long until the Raider is fully hooked up into the simulation unit?"

"About one day." Kirana replied.

"Good. Now let's get ready. We have a appointment to make with Cain."

--

**Can anybody guess what is special about the Raider? (Hint: In the show it has a name.) If Leoben's lines sounded like somebody stole them out of the script for Kara's first meeting with him...It's probably because I did. And I actually came up with the abilty to make Raiders and Centurions smarter before Six of One. I just took the name from it. Please Review.  
**


	6. A Fight Over Dinner

**Why do I even bother with this disclamer?**

**This does involve a fight over dinner. I hope you like it.**

**Again, some spoilers involving Razor**

--

**Chapter 6- A Fight Over Dinner**

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

Daala spoke to Kirana. "Get your best guard and follow me back to the _Pegasus_ for dinner."

Kretas looked at her. "Am I coming?"

Daala shook her head. "If something goes wrong and I die, the _Gorgon_ will need a reliable commander. But I do have one thing for you to do. I need you to cook."

Kretas looked at her like she had lost her mind. "Besides the fact that a dinner on the _Pegasus_ means that Cain will supply the food, why me? We do have cooks on this ship, you know."

Daala smirked. "Yes, but I do believe you may be the only person on this ship who knows how to make a good Corellian spiceloaf. Hurry, or I'll be late."

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG -62**

The second landing on the _Pegasus _went more smoothly then the first. When the ramp lowered and Daala stepped out of the shuttle, there were only two marines waiting for her, and their rifles were not aimed at her. The two marines escorted Daala and her guards to Cain's quarters. Daala was carrying the spiceloaf so that both of her guards could have their hands free. Her guards carried multiple weapons, including blaster rifles and electrified clubs for short range combat. Because of the fact that Cylons had been know to infiltrate fleet ships, precautions had been taken in case there were some onboard the _Pegasus_. Back when the Emperor was still alive a replica droid had been created that was almost indistinguishable from a human. They did emit a small amount of magnetic energy, so all guard and Stormtrooper helmets could now scan people and determine where they were Cylons or not.

After a couple of minutes spent walking through a maze of passageways, they finally arrived at Cain's quarters. The door had been left open for them. As Daala and her guards stepped in the room, Daala was able to take a look at the elaborate decorations in Cain's room. All around the room was a collection of slugthrowers, from flintlock pistons to menacing assault rifles. Daala thought she might like Cain. The other prominent features in her room were a large dining table, complete with meals on the center of the table, and a large bed. Cain was waiting for them. When Daala saw Cain she froze. Cain was the woman from her dream. Upon seeing her expression, Cain asked, "What's the matter? You look like I just shot your dog."

Daala regained her composure and extended her hand. "Admiral Natasi Daala, commander of the Star Destroyer _Gorgon_, Imperial fleet."

Cain shook her hand. "Admiral Helena Cain, commander of the Battlestar _Pegasus_. I'm what's left of the Colonial fleet."

Daala shook he head. "No, you're not. The Battlestar _Galactica _is still alive."

Cain's mouth dropped open. Daala smiled. "You see? We do have a lot to talk about."

Cain looked at Daala's guards. "Are those your bodyguards?"

Daala nodded. "Could I see their faces?" asked Cain. The guards hesitated, but after nod of approval from Daala they removed their helmets, revealing the faces of Kirana Forr and Araeya Ran-shok, one of Daala's other guards. While Cain was studying their faces, a woman walked in the room. She was slightly taller than Daala, and had honey-blond hair. When she walked in both guards still had their helmets off, so they missed the Cylon detector alarms that were gong off in their helmets.

Kirana and Araeya stepped outside the room and closed the hatch, not knowing that they had left their leader in the same room with a Cylon.

When the woman stepped in the room Cain smiled. "This is Systems Analyst Gina Inviere. She'll be joining us for dinner."

At first Daala was confused why someone who was not even an officer was joining them…until she saw them exchange what was supposed to be a casual kiss on the cheek, a greeting. But she noticed that the kiss was a bit closer to the mouth than the cheek, and they lingered a bit longer than was custom. Daala didn't care. She had nothing against same sex couples. But why did she have a feeling that she had seen Inviere before?

During dinner Daala explained about the Empire, the Rebels, and her current situation. Of course, she left out lots of important details, like that their shields were down, and the capabilities of her fighters. "Amazing. So you have…aliens aboard your ship?" Cain said. Daala nodded. She was one of the only high ranked Imperials that were not biased about non-humans.

"But only a few. I can introduce you later if you'd like that."

"And what do you know about the Cylons?" said Cain.

Daala noticed that Gina seemed a bit uncomfortable when discussing the Cylons. "Well, the Cylons used a man named Gaius Baltar, have you heard of him?"

Cain nodded. "He designed the CNP navigation software, using networked computers. At the time of the attacks, ours was down…Oh." Cain's voice trailed off as she put it all together. "He was a traitor, wasn't he?"

Daala nodded. "He's probably dead from the nukes on Caprica. But he wasn't alone. The Cylons can look like humans now. There are seven models and-" Daala stopped abruptly. She realized where she had seen Gina before. The recording that was taken by Stormtroopers inside the Resurrection ship had shown the seven models. The ones that had been I.D as number Sixes had the same body as Gina. Gina must have seen recognition in Daala's eyes, because even as she shouted "Guards!", Gina tipped the table over, sending Cain and Daala flying. The door flew open, and Kirana and Araeya rushed in. Their helmet alarms went off, and the sensors in their helmet automatically locked onto Gina. But Gina was faster that them, and slammed into Kirana, knocking her to the floor and grabbing her blaster. Araeya raised her blaster rifle and fired a shot, but in her haste she had little time to aim, and the blaster bolt went tight over Gina's shoulder. Gina brought up her stolen blaster and shot Araeya in the face, killing her. All this happened over the course of two seconds.

As Kirana started to get up, Gina shot her in the abdomen. Kirana collapsed again, her hands clutching her stomach wound. In one smooth move Gina whacked Daala in the head with the rifle and turned toward Cain.

--

Kirana and Araeya wee standing outside Cain's hatch when they heard Daala's cry for help. Kirana's helmet began to beep urgently, and a red target designator locked onto Gina. But Gina was unnaturally fast and strong, and she slammed into Kirana and grabbed her rifle. As Kirana struggled to stand, as she had the breath knocked out of her, she could only watch as Gina shot her friend and colleague. Then Gina shot her in the gut. Pain washed over Kirana as she doubled over, her wound smoking. But that was alright. Kirana knew pain. She had experienced more of it then she should have had to. Just as Daala got clubbed by the rifle, Kirana managed to take her hands off her stomach and grab her electrified club. Kirana staggered to her feet and saw the rifle come to rest on Cain's head.

But Gina did not shoot, and Kirana registered a hint of confusion in her eyes. Kirana used that time to grab her electrified club and hit Gina in the back, sending thousands of volts of electricity through her body. As Gina fell to the ground, Kirana used the last of her energy to hit her one more time, knocking her out. Her energy spent, Kirana collapsed.

Cain was in shock. Her lover had just attacked the Admiral from another galaxy, and had possibly killed her and her guards. Cain knew her first reaction should be to check Daala, but she found herself drawn towards Gina. Was it true? Was she a Cylon? Cain knew very well that she was a woman in many ways, and it seemed impossible.

Cain broke out of her stupor and dashed over to Daala. She was unconscious, but still breathing. Looking at the guards Cain instantly knew that one of them was dead, her face a smoldering wreck. The other one was alive, but barely. Cain hurried over to the phone. Picking it up, she said, "Marines and medics to the Admiral's quarters. Emergency!"

--

"Hey, Suna. Have you heard the joke about the monkey who fell out of the tree?"

Suna Yres groaned. "For the third time, yes! He was dead." she said in her clipped and precise English accent. "Will you ever just shut up and go away? Or is that too much to hope for?"

Devlin McAllister grinned. He enjoyed annoying his co-worker. After all, they were the only people on watch in the _Pegasus_'s aft damage control, which functioned like a auxiliary control room. Suddenly the loudspeaker blared, and both Suna and Devlin heard Admiral Cain's voice over the intercom. "Marines and medics to the Admiral's quarters. Emergency!"

Devlin turned to Suna. "What'd'ya think is going on?"

But Suna was not able to think. Thoughts kept racing into her head. A flip had been switched in her head. Gina was in trouble. Six. Three. Mission. Suna brushed her long blonde hair out of her eyes and looked at Devon. "I think… I'm going to kill you." Suna withdrew her pistol and shot Devlin three times in the chest. Holstering her smoking gun, Suna kicked him a couple of times. "Why did _you_ fall out of the tree?"

Suna casually walked to the doors of the control room and bolted them shut. Walking over to the bank of switches she looked at all of them, humming a little tne. "So much work, so little time. What's a Three to do?"

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

Commander Kretas sat in the chair which was usually Daala's, waiting for her return. It was boring out on the _Gorgon_. There was nothing to do. He wondered how the meeting was going.

Suddenly the sensor officer spun around. "Radiation detected! Coming from the Battlestar _Pegasus_. The _Pegasus_ is coming about, turning to face us. ETA until maneuver complete is thirty seconds."

Kretas paled. While the nuclear warheads on the _Pegasus _would be easy to shoot down, the main batteries were another matter. Each giant slug that the _Pegasus_'s main guns shot could blow the bridge right off the destroyer. If only they had shields.

"Issue one warning to them. Tell them to disarm their nukes and cut power to engines. And try to raise the Admiral on comlink."

The communications officer nodded. "Aye aye, sir." After a moment of multitasking, the comm officer turned back to him. "I can't contact the Battlestar, and Admiral Daala isn't answering her comm."

Kretas closed his eyes. "Roll ninety degrees to starboard, depress all guns to maximum angle. I want every weapon we have targeting those engines. Launch all fighters."

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

Suna smiled. It felt so good to be a Three again. Her memories had been repressed until she sensed something was wrong, like a fellow Cylon in trouble. But still so much work to do. She had already overridden the CIC's controls and jammed all wireless frequencies, and started to maneuver the ship. Watching the progress of the _Pegasus_'s roll she was disappointed. The fixed main guns still didn't have a firing solution. But that's what secondary guns were for. As a afterthought, she opened all flight pod doors and opened all launch tubes. With the launch tubes locked open, it was impossible to get a fighter that wasn't already in the tube to launch. Assuming there were any fighters left. She knew that it was only a matter of time before a squad of marines came bashing down the door. Oh well. That's what pistols were made for.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

"Commander. Something's wrong." The speaker, who was the temporary XO, directed Kretas's attention to the transperisteel window on the bridge. What Kretas saw puzzled him. The massive doors on the flight pods were opening. He could see the air being sucked out of the pods, followed by unmanned Vipers, Raptors, and human bodies. _No officer would open doors killing hundreds of people for no reason_._ Why would they do that?_ he wondered. Then it hit him. They weren't doing it on purpose.

He stood up. "Order all fighters to attack the engines on the Battlestar. Jump to emergency coordinates. Now!"

--

On the hull of the _Pegasus_ secondary batteries swiveled in their mounts to face the _Gorgon_. They were still loaded with flak rounds from the last battle. Unfortunately for Suna, she needed a key to launch nukes, and was only able to open their doors. But that wasn't a problem. The secondary guns would start firing any second now, and the main batteries would be in range in about fifteen seconds. The secondary guns locked on the _Gorgon_'s bridge and opened fire.

The _Gorgon_ was about to enter hyperspace when the first shells from the _Pegasus_ hit. Most of them did no real damage, but one shell exploded fifty meters from the bridge view port. One piece of shrapnel pieced the window, went through the communications officers neck, nearly decapitating him, and lodged in Kretas's right shoulder. He fell to his knees in shock, and did not resist when someone hauled him out of the bridge area. The amount of air that was flowing out of the view port overstressed it, and with a roar the whole piece of transperisteel crumbled and was sucked away into space. The blast doors closed behind Kretas, and he felt a slight lurch as the _Gorgon_ jumped away.

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

Suna was very disappointed. The destroyer had jumped right before she had a firing solution for the main guns. But at least there were still fighters out there. She set the secondary batteries and CIWS systems to auto fire.

--

**Sigma Leader, TIE Bomber**

Sigma leader used his tongue to toggle the comm switch in his helmet. He was flying a TIE Bomber, and even though there was heavy jamming his ship's comm as still able to broadcast. "Sigma squadron, Sigma Lead. Stay away from the ship's guns and unload your missiles on the engines. The _Gorgon_ will be back any minute to help us." He tried to sound confident, but that was hard to do. Last time he had seen the _Gorgon_, it had a hole in its bridge and it had jumped away from the fight, with most of its craft still in the hanger. Sigma squadron was only half full, and there were only a handful of fighters and interceptors to guard them. While a few of the craft were hyperspace capable, the rest were stranded until the _Gorgon_ returned. If it returned.

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

Cain had made it to the CIC despite the frantic confusion in her quarters, where Daala and her barely surviving guard were rushed to the sickbay, and Gina was taken to the brig. She stalked into the CIC, furious. "Mr. Hoshi!" she barked. "Sitrep!"

Hoshi had a confused expression on his face. " I don't know. We're firing our guns, but we have no control over them. The wireless is being jammed, and all the controls are being overridden by the aft damage control department." He paused. "The flight pod doors were opened with people inside of them. And the Vipers are locked out of their tubes."

Cain turned to Belzen. "Send a detachment of marines to the aft damage control room. Stop this madness."

--

**Blue 3, Viper Mk.VII **

Lt. Sophie "Deadbolt" Narcasa was bored out of her mind. Ever since that stupid fraked up destroyer arrived, Cain ordered that at least ten Vipers be manned in the tubes at all time. And of course, as the female pilot with the most kills, she just _had_ to be assigned to this duty. This was her third hour in the tube. Only five more to go.

Suddenly the she heard the distinctive hiss of air that meant that the doors which faced space had just been opened. Which also meant that the door behind her had closed. She looked of the left side of her Viper's canopy and into the launch room, expecting to see a technician with launch key in hand, waiting for her to give the signal to launch. Instead, she did find a technician, but the technician was being sucked out of the launch control room almost like…a explosive decompression. Then she felt the vibrations as the ship's guns began to fire. Frak this. She wasn't going to sit around in a tube until a battle was over. But how would she get out? Well there was one way, but it was a very stupid idea. Sounded like her kind of plan. She goosed her afterburners, and her ship began to slide down the launch rail, grinding across the metal rail. She started to achieve some velocity, but not enough. When she reached the end of the tube she still didn't have much momentum. She was close enough to the _Pegasus _that when she left the tube, its artificial gravity pulled her down. Skimming across the hull, she was able to break free, and coated into space. What she saw confused and horrified her.

The _Pegasus _was venting atmosphere from its flight pods, and she could see Vipers and the mechanics that were working on them thrown into space. Than there was also that matter of the guns. The Battlestar was firing as many guns as it could. She saw a stream of rounds that were aimed at the destroyer. But what frightened her was what else they were shooting at. There had been three Vipers on CAP, but now there was only one left, no make that zero. The _Pegasus_'s CIWS guns had specifically targeted the Vipers on CAP. She then saw a round impact on the _Gorgon_'s bridge, and watched it jump out of the system. She also spotted a group of fighters from the destroyer, heading towards the Battlestar's engine section, presumably to stop it from attacking more ships.

But then she saw two turrets traversing towards them. The flak rounds would tear those fighters to pieces. She had a choice to make. Watch them die or blow up the turrets and save them. Of course, firing on her own ship and helping knock out its engines was technically treason, but she was pretty sure that something was wrong with her ship.

Pushing those thoughts out of her head, she lined up on the first battery and fired, sending bullets flying into the gun, destroying it. She repeated the process on the second gun, and waited for the bombers to shoot.

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

The bombers never needed to fire. Suna had just turned her attention from the guns to the emergency venting procedure. As she started to reach for the buttons that would vent all of the _Pegasus_'s atmosphere into space, she heard a bang as the door flew open, flowed by a group of marines. She shrugged inwardly. It was bound to happen sometime. She pulled her gun up and shot one marine in the face. Her next two rounds impacted the armor on one of the marine's chest, but did not penetrate. That particular marine had distracted her enough so that another marine was able to sneak up behind her and knock her unconscious with the butt of his rifle. The marines quickly secured her and restored all control to the CIC. Cain shut off the engines to indicate that the fight was over to the _Gorgon_. But the DRADIS sensor was clear. The _Gorgon_ was gone. Out in space, the TIEs that had hyperdrives decided to jump back to their ship, leaving the bombers of Sigma squadron to drift in space. Finally they were able to get clearance to land on the _Pegasus_. They landed in the port flight pod. It was a eerie sight because the pod was empty, when it should have been bustling with activity and covered with fighters.

--

Cain made her way from the CIC to the LifeStation onboard. She looked at the two patients lying on white cots, Admiral Daala and Royal Guardswoman Forr. They were both unconscious. Cain walked over to the doctor. "How are they?" she asked.

The doctor, whose name was Mike Gibbons, shook his head. "They're both critical." he said. "We don't have the resources to treat them. One has a smoking crater where her gut should be and the other has a bashed in skull. That fancy ship of theirs better get back fast, or they're both dead."

--

**I had just finished re-watching a episode with D'Anna in it, and I just _had_ to put a Three in the story. Unfortunatly, starting about the 19th, I am leaving for about three weeks and will probaly not have computer acces. That, plus a 20 page paper I have to write means that there probably will either be a update or two within the next week or there won't be a update for another month or so. But when I come back I will almost certanly have a chapter or two. **

**P.S. SSJ-Jolt, GalacticaCAG, and amac1688 used the really huge hint last chapter to figure out 18503's identity. He will play a big part later in the story. Please review!**


	7. How to Make a Bad Situation Worse

**Well, I was wrong. I was able to post this chapter, and I might be able to post another one before I leave, but I'm not sure.**

**Disclaimer-I really don't own much here.**

**Spoilers-Not much right here.**

**I tried to do the best I could with this chapter, but I was never satisfied with how it went. Oh well.**

--

**Chapter 7- How to Make a Bad Situation Worse**

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

The _Gorgon_ reentered realspace with a jolt. Commander Kretas was propped up against a bulkhead, the long jagged piece of metal that had killed the communications officer imbedded in his shoulder. Stormtroopers, damage-control teams and medics had immediately responded to the situation. The medics tried to get Kretas into a bacta tank, but he refused. Kretas managed to stand up and he faced one of the medics. "You. Pull that piece of shrapnel out."

The medic paled. "Umm, sir?"

"You heard me." he said. "Get it out."

The medic pulled a syringe out of his kit and tried to stick it in Kretas's arm, but he refused. "Painkillers will knock me out. I need to keep a clear head." The medic hesitated, but the grabbed the piece of shrapnel and pulled hard as he could. As it came loose with a wet sucking noise, Kretas gritted his teeth and tried to his best not to scream in agony. When it was out the medic slapped a bacta patch, a bandage soaked with bacta that would help close the wound a little and prevent infection, on the wound.

Kretas managed to stagger over to the damage-control team leader. "What's our status?" he asked.  
"When we lost the viewport the vacuum not only sucked out chairs and small objects, but it also ripped out a lot of consoles. It'll take a while to get it running again, and at least four days without moving to replace the viewport. We also lost ten officers."

Kretas swore. "Get me to the auxiliary bridge. Were going back to rescue the Admiral."

--

The auxiliary bridge was intended as a backup incase the main bridge was destroyed or inoperable. While it was capable of doing everything that the regular bridge could do, it was smaller, had no viewport, and could hold less people, so all the officers had to be multi-tasking. In short, it was no substitute for the real bridge. When Kretas arrived in the auxiliary bridge, he found all the stations manned and ready. "Ready all weapons." he said. "Prepare to fire at the engines of the _Pegasus_ as soon as we revert to realspace. The Pegasus has no networked computers, so it'll be a take more than one ion cannon shot to disable the engines. Forget about targeting the armor with the turbolasers. That armor is made to withstand nuclear detonations, and it would take at least twelve seconds to burn through it. Prepare to fire proton torpedoes in ripple formation. Let's keep it from hitting us with its main guns. Jump on my mark. Three, two one, mark."

With that, the _Gorgon _jumped back towards the _Pegasus_, not realizing that it had shut down all systems to show that it was safe. Seconds after the _Gorgon_ left, three TIE Interceptors from Drake squadron and one TIE Bomber from Sigma squadron arrived in the system, hoping to tell their destroyer that the _Pegasus_ was no threat. When the pilots saw the _Gorgon_ jump, they immediately understood the danger the _Pegasus_ was in, and prepared to jump back to stop the fighting. Unfortunately, it would take several moments to calculate the jump coordinates. The pilots just hoped they weren't too late.

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

On the _Pegasus_, Cain had made her way back to the CIC. She had just arrived when the DRADIS console started beeping. "DRADIS contact, bearing 233, carom 155." Hoshi said. "It's the _Gorgon_."

Cain was relived to hear that. Maybe the two Imperials in the sickbay might just make it. But something didn't feel right. "Mr. Hoshi, what's the status of their weapons?"

"Ah, it seems like they're charging up their guns. Wait, missiles inbound! Forty of them!"

On the _Gorgon_, forty proton torpedoes were fired from their dual launchers. While fast, they didn't impact before the energy weapons. Ion cannons hit the engines sending sparks skittering across the whole ship, while turbolasers chewed on the engine mountings, weakening them. And then the torpedoes hit. The force of forty proton explosives detonating at the same time ripped of four of the _Pegasus_'s six engine mountings, twisting them and treating them, effectively crippling its movement capability. On board the _Gorgon_, Kretas walked out of the control room. "Prepare an assault shuttle with some troopers. We're going to get our leader back."

--

**Bravo 0, **_**Sentinel **_**shuttle**

Kretas, still with fairly serious wound in his side, boarded the _Sentinel_-class assault shuttle. More heavily armed and armored that the _Lambda_ shuttles, the _Sentinel_ carried eleven blasters and ion cannons, and had two missile tubes with four rounds each. It could also carry up to six Stormtrooper squads, or 54 troopers.

When they were halfway to the _Pegasus_, the hyperdrive-equipped Interceptors and Bomber dropped back into realspace. "_Gorgon_, don't fire on the _Pegasus_! I repeat don't fire on the-oh." The pilots had seen the damage done to the _Pegasus_'s engines. "_Gorgon_, this is Sigma 3. A Cylon had taken control of the _Pegasus_'s weapons. The ship was under control when you attacked. Hold your fire. And you better get some medics over their quick. The Admiral's been seriously hurt. I don't know if she's going to make it." Kretas paled. _Daala, dead? No. That can't happen. It can't._ Upon hearing the transmission, the pilot goosed the throttles and sent the shuttle flying into the empty flight pod. As the wings folded up, the pilot lowered the skids and the shuttle screeched to a halt. Immediately Kretas disembarked, followed by 54 Stormtroopers. They had brought along a medic as well, although he also wore armor, an was indistinguishable from the rest of the troopers. The hatches that lead off the flight pods were closed, so Kretas raised his blaster and blew one of them open. The Stormtroopers that accompanied him were to well trained to look at each other or chat on the comlinks in their helmets, but blasting the door open without checking to see if it was latched was unusual, even if rescuing their leader was involved.

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

They plowed through the corridors, not seeing anyone. On their way to the LifeStation, they encountered Admiral Cain, who was exiting the CIC with Lt. Kendra Shaw. "Freeze! Put your hands behind your heads!" one of the Stormtroopers ordered. Cain was expecting something like this to happen, so she complied. Kendra, however, turned around and aimed her pistol at Kretas's head. "

Put _your_ guns down, or I blow his head off." Even though the Stormtroopers could probably fire first, she would still have the time to pull the trigger before she died. But Cain intervened.

"Put it down, Shaw." Kendra eyes flickered from Cain to Kretas.

"But Admiral-"

"Put the fraking gun down now!" Shaw reluctantly dropped the gun and put her hands behind her head.

"Take us to Admiral Daala." Kretas said. Cain obediently led them to the LifeStation. When Kretas saw Kirana and Daala lying on the examination tables, he almost dropped his gun and practically flew over to Daala. "How is she?" he asked.

The doctor shook his head. "Critical. Parts of her skull are broken." Kretas motioned one of the troopers over. The trooper had been carrying a medkit. He withdrew several supplies and went to work, using a bacta cap, which basically was a small bowl-sized of container of bacta that could be attached to a wound. He attached one to Kirana's stomach. He then used various pieces of equipment to pull Daala's skull together. While he was working Kretas turned to Cain. "How did this happen?"

Cain began to recount the whole story, starting when Daala first arrived to brining her to the sickbay. "Your Admiral was mentioning that Cylons could look like humans when Gina-I mean Analyst Inviere, attacked. At the same time, we also had a officer who took control of our guns and fired them at you. Could they really be Cylons?"

Kretas nodded. "We have lots of intel you might like to know. And I apologize for shooting out your engines. I thought-"

"It's alright. I would have one the same in your position. And what happened to your shoulder?"

Kretas smiled grimly. "Your flak guns." Cain wasn't sure what to say about that, so she said, "Daala had mentioned something about tractor beams. Do you think you could use them to help us? We have almost 60 fighters just floating around in space out there."

"Sure." Kretas said. "We'll dispatch some shuttles to recover them soon." Before they could talk any further they heard of moan. They turned around to see Kirana struggling to get up. The medic rushed over to her. "Stay down. We'll get you back to the ship." He motioned for to of the other troopers to come over. They lifted Kirana, who was no longer in her armor, as it had to be taken off to treat her, and started to carry her back to the shuttle. Commander, come here." the medic said.

Kretas came over to Daala. "I'll need you to hold her down. She needs to be conscious." Kretas nodded. The device that was holding her head together needed her to be awake to work well for some technical reason that Kretas had forgotten long ago. The medic withdrew a long hypodermic needle from his kit. "This is a shot of adrenaline. It'll wake her up, but she might be dazed. Need to keep her still." The medic carefully inserted the needle into a vein in her wrist, and pushed the plunger. Daala's eyes snapped open, and she screamed. The troopers were startled and Kretas jumped back. Suddenly there was a buzzing noise from all around them. Kretas looked and saw a amazing sight. All the clocks on the wall and all watches and chronos were speeding up. The digital displays were moving so fast that the numbers weren't visible, and some of the analogue clocks were spinning so fast that they broke.

After a few seconds it stopped. Cain looker around at all the clocks. The ones that were still working were ticking along at a regular pace. "What the frak is going on?" she said.

Kretas had a sinking feeling. He turned to one of the troopers. "Soldier, what's today's date, as shown on your chrono?" The Stormtrooper activated the chrono in his eyepiece. "Sir, its cycle seven, day 22."

Kretas's eyes widened. "It was cycle four, day 13 this morning."

Cain looked at her watch. "It was the fifth of February today. My watch says it's May fourteenth. What in the gods' names just happened?"

Daala chose that moment to regain conciseness, even if she was very out of it. "Hey." she said, her voice soft and confused. "What's going on?"

Kretas kneeled down next to her. "It's okay. We're brining you back to the _Gorgon_. Just hang on." He helped her up, and let her lean on him as they slowly walked back through the corridors of the _Pegasus_. Cain decided to walk with them, and told Daala of the events that had just happened, although she highly doubted Daala was processing the information she gave her. Cain looked at the way Kretas was helping her, almost lovingly. Cain had noticed it when he had first seen Daala after Gina hurt her. Gina. It hurt to think of her. _Fraking Cylon_, she thought. _Probably just pretended to love me_.

--

They had just passed the CIC when an alarm went off. Cain had heard a unusual amount of chatter, but she had assumed it was confusion over the whole time issue. She walked into the CIC, with Daala right behind her, despite Kretas insisting that she had to get back to the _Gorgon_. "Mr. Hoshi." Cain said. "Give me a Sitrep."

Hoshi's face was grim. "We have a DRADIS contact. Three Cylon Basestars on intercept course, bearing 001, carom 103, CBDR. They'll be in main gun range in three minutes."

"Set condition one throughout the fleet, Launch the alert Vipers, send jump data to the civilian ships and make a emergency jump."

Hoshi shook his head. "We barely have any Vipers anymore, and we can't jump anywhere with only two engines."

Cain turned to Daala and Kretas. "Can you help?"

Kretas shrugged. "I don't know. Since we lost the main bridge, we have to use our emergency bridge, and we have less control from there. There's also heavy jamming. We're going to have to fly out shuttle back through a group of Raiders. But frankly, I just don't know. It's probably a even fi-"

Kretas was interrupted by a loud alarm. "Additional DRADIS contacts!" Hoshi said. "Four more Basestars, same bearing."

Cain looked at Kretas and Daala. "We can't fight off a fleet that big. We're dead."

--

**I hope you liked it. If you don't, just review and tell me what I did wrong. I hope the part with the clocks wan't too confusing, as it will be important to the story. Please review, and thanks for reading.**


	8. A Turn of Events

**I'm finally both back and with a new chapter. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I only own a few of the characters. I just mess around with the others.**

**Spoilers: None that I can think of.**

--

**Chapter 8- A Turn of Events**

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer **_**Gorgon**_

The group of Imperials managed to make it to the shuttle and most of the way to the _Gorgon_ before the Cylon Raiders hit them. The pilot of the shuttle opened up with his blaster cannons, shredding a wing of Raiders. He failed to see the group of twelve Heavy Raiders that blasted through the _Gorgon_'s defenses and landed in the secondary hanger bay. The shuttle quickly docked in the main hanger bay, and Kretas helped offload Daala and Kirana, while two Stormtroopers helped keep them upright so they could walk to the medbay. They were on their way when the lights flickered and then went off. After a few seconds power kicked back in, but it was only emergency power. Kretas frowned. Why would the power go off? It would take a very serious hit to effect the power.

Suddenly he heard a clanking noise, and five Centurions sprinted down the corridor towards them. Even as the Stormtroopers let go of Daala and Kirana, the metal hulks barreled towards them. It appeared that the Centurions had learned that their machine guns had little effect on trooper armor, so it was not much of a surprise that one of them was carrying a ridiculously large sized gun. The Centurion with the gun stopped, raised it and fired. The gun fired a projectile almost the size of a Raider's KEW, and it went right through the armor, killing the unlucky trooper. The other Stormtrooper managed to shoot the Cylon carrying the gun, the blaster bolt burning through the unlucky machine's chest, but another one was right next to him, its long, and wickedly sharp fingers extended. It grabbed him by the throat with one hand, and shoved the other under his helmet, past the safety of the stab-proof body glove and into the troopers throat.

It dropped the dead Stormtrooper, its hands coated in blood. It turned to Daala and Kretas, and extended its machine guns. Its red eye pulsing furiously, it raised its guns and lined them up. But it didn't fire. It seemed rock back and forth and turn its head to look to either side, obviously confused. After a moment it retracted its guns and shakily walked away.

--

Kretas wasn't strong enough to carry either of them all the way to the medbay while avoiding Cylons, so he decided to head for the auxiliary bridge. When he finally made it, half dragging them along, he was exhausted. Luckily, a attentive young crewman helped him one they reached the bridge.

The damage-control officer directed Kretas to a chair. "We've taken multiple missile hits in both the engine area and the most forward part of the bow, and one on our superstructure. We've managed to take out one Basestar and disable another, and the _Pegasus_ got one, but the Raiders are breaking through. We don't have enough fighters, and the _Pegasus_ only has one bird up. As I can see you noticed, we had Cylon boarders on the ship."

"Can we repel the boarders? Don't we have almost 10,000 soldiers on board?" Kretas asked.

The officer shrugged. "We could, but they already left. All they did was take the Cylon prisoner that we had captured."

Kretas half closed his eyes. "Can we make a jump out of here? As much as I don't like leaving what may be our only chance to get home to be blown up, we're dead if we stay here."

"We can't leave. Our nav computer took another hit, and unless we want to do a blind jump we're not getting out of here."

Kretas reluctantly nodded. There was no way they were ever going to make a blind jump into hyperspace in the middle of a battle ever again."Let's try to take as many of them with us as we can."

--

**Basestar 201**

On one of the Basestars a Two and a Six were in the control room. The Two tapped directly into the data stream and started communicating with the Hybrid. "The hybrid is confused. She's speaking."

This particular Six was one of the only Cylons who believed the Twos when they said that the Hybrid did not speak in madness, rather it speaks the truth. "And what does she say?" she asked.

The Two shook his head. "The hybrid is too confused. I can't understand her. I doubt's she is understanding herself. Something about time."

"Well, we do have good news. Our brother, Leoben," she said, using his human name, "has been rescued. He's heading back to his Basestar."

The Two looked at the Six. "We should have destroyed that Star Destroyer long ago. Why is it still firing?"

The Six was at a loss for words. "The Centurions that boarded decided to leave the ship. We didn't authorize that, and it looks like our Raiders are breaking off too."

--

**Blue 3, Viper Mk.VII**

Sophie was having the time of her life. There were so many Cylon Raiders she barely had to aim. She had just lined up on her twenty-third kill when it broke off and headed back toward the Basestars. Cursing, she yanked the stick around and followed the Raider. For some reason it was going in a straight line, with no evasive maneuvers. Her brow furrowed in confusion, but that didn't stop her from spraying a three second burst across the length of the fighter. She flew through the explosion, bits of blood splattering on her canopy.

While most of the Raiders were heading back to the Basestar, the few surviving Raiders from the destroyed Basestars continued to fight. She was so intent on catching the fleeing Cylons that she didn't notice the Raider that fell in right behind her. It opened up with its cannons, sending bullets ripping trough her fighter. Her right wing was blown off, and a couple rounds went through her viewport, shattering it. All the air in the cockpit was sucked out, leaving her in the vacuum of space. She knew that she would not last too long in space before the cold got to her. But that was the least of her problems. She managed to turn her Viper around just enough that she could see the perusing Raider. It carefully trained its guns on her ship and opened fire.

--

**Omega 7, TIE Fighter**

Talon saw a red dot that represented a Cylon Raider converge with the blue dot that represented the _Pegasus_'s only surviving Viper. He shoved the throttle to full power and zoomed towards the fight at a speed no Cylon could match. He was just a few meters away from firing distance when the Raider opened fire, chewing of the right wing of the Viper. The damaged Viper some how managed to turn around a little bit, but not enough to shoot it. There was no way he'd be able to shoot the raider before it fired. He closed his eyes. Sometimes, when facing a seemingly impossible situation, he would just close his eyes and _feel_ what was going ion. He didn't know how to explain it, he just did it. His fingers flew across the control board at amazing speed, dumping all discretionary power into his engines. He rolled right into the firing path of the Cylon Raider, taking the bullets that were meant for the Viper pilot. Usually his shields would stop the bullets, but they had collapsed earlier in the battle. The bullets stitched across his fighter, blowing out the engines. One bullet passed through the back of his fighter, his right shoulder bone, shattering it, and exited through the bottom of the fighter, taking out its lasers. Now he had no engines, no weapons, a hole in his fighter that was sucking all the heat out of is fighter, and an arm that was almost blown off.

--

**Blue 3, Viper Mk.VII**

Sophie watched in amazement as the Imperial fighter took the bullets meant for her. As the bullets decimated the craft, it was painfully obvious to her that the TIE pilot was going to get killed by that fighter. But she'd be damned if anyone was going to die for her, especially if she owed her life to that person. She was missing an engine, and had had to turn her center and left engine off the keep the craft from going into a uncontrollable and deadly spin. She used the last of her oxygen reserves to push her craft out of the way of the TIE and into the path of the Raider. Then she used her right hand to shove the thrust on her left engine to full and used her left to pull on the yellow eject handle.

Explosive bolts blew off her canopy only half a second before the rocket in her seat blew her out of the Viper, the G forces from the acceleration pulling her arms down. A sensor in the seat quickly determined that she was not in or near a planetary body, and decided not to eject the parachute. It started sending out coded bursts that would show up on any friendly DRADIS screen, alerting a rescue craft that there was an EV pilot.

Her plane, now unoccupied, suffered terribly from its injuries. The sudden spin she had put it in from using her left engine shook it apart, sending pieces of scrap metal flying out into empty space…which just happened to be in the Cylon Raiders flight path. It dashed through the debris cloud, punching hundreds of small holes into the cockpit. While it looked intact, it went into a ballistic spin, leaving no doubt that it had been destroyed. As Sophie drifted in space, she could only pray that a rescue craft would be on station the to rescue both her and the brave TIE pilot.

--

**Battlezone**

The _Gorgon_ and the _Pegasus_ had each destroyed a Basestar, and the _Gorgon_ had disabled another one. The disabled ship had a self destruct that operated mechanically, so it would destroy itself even if power was knocked out.

But the missiles from the Basestars had a devastating effect on the two warships. Missiles pounded into the star destroyer, ripping off hull plates and pulverizing some weapon and sensor turrets.

The attack on the _Pegasus_ was not as brutal. Perhaps the Cylons considered them less of a threat than they did the Star Destroyer. But whatever the reasons, the _Pegasus _was only moderately damaged. Hoping to buy themselves some more time, both the Battlestar and the Destroyer fired in unison at one of the remaining Basestars. The _Pegasus_ managed to get a few rounds off from their main guns before a disaster happened.

A Cylon Raider, the same one that Sophie had unconventionally shot down, came spiraling toward the _Pegasus_. What happened was a coincidence of astronomical proportions. Just as a round from one of the gigantic main guns roared out of the tube, the Raider converged on that exact space. When the shell impacted the Raider instead of just passing through it, the shell detonated only a few feet from the bow of the mighty warship. The explosion damaged most of the main battery and crumpled some of the heat-resistant armor.

Another disaster happened, but this time for the Cylons. One of the shells that the _Pegasus _had managed to get off at the fourth Basestar penetrated the center pylon and crashed right through the self-destruct, at the same time a wave of energy from the _Gorgon_'s ion cannons hit the exact same spot. The result was a disabled Basestar that could not destroy itself.

--

**Basestar 201**

The Six was thrown against the wall of the control room, and the Two helped her up. They did not need to talk as they immersed themselves in the data stream. They saw the damage reports, that almost everything was disabled. In fact, DRADIS was one of the only operative systems. They also saw that the self-destruct was completely gone. The Centurions standing in the hallways refused to budge, and just stood there, red eyes pulsing back and forth. They looked into the DRADIS and saw the other Cylons deserting them, suddenly giving up the attack on the heavily damaged enemies, and they saw the boarding shuttles coming towards them. Watching the bleak situation, the Six grasped the Two's hand, closed her eyes and prepared for the worst.

--

**Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Sophie "Deadbolt" Narcasa , EV**

Sophie watched as the three remaining Basestars jumped away, leaving behind the two disabled ones, which quickly turned into one as the self destruct activated, turning it into a brilliant fireball. She could see the _Pegasus_, which was venting atmosphere off the starboard side.

Her arms began to grow numb from the cold, and she was about to resign herself to death before she saw a silver triangle. It was one of those strange Imperial shuttles, equipped with a tractor beam. She noticed the disabled TIE Fighter get dragged in so they could extract the pilot. Just then, she felt a shudder as she started to be pulled in towards the craft. As she started to exit the coldness of space she felt a emotion she hadn't felt since before the attacks, before that one cadet at the academy messed her life up.

Hope.

--

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter. A major plot point is coming up soon, and with any luck a new chapter will be up soon. **

**To deathsheadx: Thanks for pointing the number 8-Boomer thing to me. I tried to go back and explain a bit more about it. **

**Please review. It's always nice to know whether you like it or not.  
**


	9. Escape

**This was originally going to be half of a longer chapter, but I decided to make two shorter chapters. **

**Disclaimer: I only own a couple of these guys. The rest are not mine.**

**Spoilers: Not much.**

--

**Chapter 9- Escape**

--

**Bravo 3, **_**Lambda **_**Shuttle**

The medics on board the rescue shuttle quickly went to work on both Talon and Sophie. Sophie's injures were minor, but her body temperature was very low. They quickly wrapped her up in a heated blanket and went to work on Talon. The 30mm KEW shell had pulverized the bones in his right shoulder, and the arm looked like it was in danger of falling off. The medics injected him with a painkiller and turned around back to the _Gorgon_. His arm needed to be amputated.

--

**Bravo 0, **_**Sentinel **_**shuttle**

The _Gorgon_'s only _Sentinel_-class shuttle, the same one that led the boarding party to the _Pegasus_, headed towards the drifting Basestar. No missiles were fired and every single Raider was gone or destroyed. The 54 Stormtroopers on board were decidedly nervous, despite all of their training. After all, the last boarding party who had boarded a Cylon ship had been blown up by the self destruct, and they were only _pretty_ sure that the destruct mechanism was gone. As Cylon Centurions, possibly armed with the large weapons that penetrated armor, could be waiting at any docking bay, the pilot fired a pair of concussion missile straight into the landing bay. When the troopers disembarked, they were surprised to see no Centurion wreckage whatsoever.

--

**Basestar 201**

They had made it half way to the control room when they ran into the first pair of Centurions. Both war machines turned their heads towards the troopers, but did not fire. Instead, they just seemed to turn off, collapsing to the ground. Confused, and unsure whether this was a Cylon trick, the troopers fired at the downed Centurions, blasting them to pieces. All along the path to the control room, the Centurions that they encountered just deactivated. Once they reached the control room they saw a Model Two and Six.

Before the Stormtroopers could fire the pair of Cylons raised their hand in surrender. Without saying a word, the troopers snapped stun cuffs on them and threw them against a wall. Three Stormtroopers covered them while the others secured the control room. The leader opened a comm channel to Kretas. Daala was not coherent enough issue commands.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer **_**Gorgon**_

"Commander, the captain of the boarding party is on the line."

Kretas turned to the young communications officer. "Put him on the speakers."

"Captain, what's the status of your party?" Kretas asked.

The voice of the Stormtrooper captain crackled to life on the speakers.

"Sir, we've secured the control room without resistance. We've encountered some Centurions, but when ever we get near they just deactivate. We found two human models in the control room, and they surrendered. Hold one second, sir."

After a moment the captain came back on line. "Sir, we spoke to the prisoners. Their models go by the numbers Six and a Two." Kretas bristled at that. He knew that Daala had interrogated a Two model. After a conversation with him she had sent in an interrogation droid, using drugs and other painful devises. They had not gotten any information from the Cylon before he was rescued. Was this the same one?...or just another copy.

"Continue." He said.

"Yes sir. The prisoners said that for some reason the Centurions wouldn't move. Their… hybrids, the organisms that control their Basestars, jumped without receiving an order to jump."

Kretas shook his head. Why would you make one of your most important systems on your ship be controlled by an entity that could make decisions your consent?

"Anyway, apparently their hybrid was injured in the fight. It stopped circulating air and all humanoid Cylons died, except in the isolated control room. The ship is ours."

Kretas mulled over that. A Basestar under their control. That could be quite a military asset. Too bad that it was missing all of its Raiders. "Roger that," he said, "We'll send reinforcements over to secure the whole ship. Carry on."

Kretas terminated the call. He had to check on Daala.

--

**Battlestar **_**Pegasus**_**, BSG-62**

Admiral Cain stalked the corridors of her vast warship, furious. Her ship had been badly damaged from the attack, she couldn't jump, almost all of her pilots were dead, her Vipers were floating in space, the Imperial shuttles dragging them back to her ship one by one, Gina had betrayed her, her lead pilot had caused an accident that had disabled most of her guns, and Gina had betrayed her. She shook her head violently. Why the _hell_ couldn't she get her mind off that fraking Cylon?!

She walked into the pilot briefing room, slamming the door shut behind her.

There was only one pilot in the room, Lt. (J.G.) Sophie "Deadbolt" Narcasa. Cain had to admit she was pretty, with slightly longer then regulation length dark red hair tied back in a ponytail. She had a large cut on her arm which came from part of her cockpit. That had exposed her to the cold of space, almost killing her. The Imperials had treated the cut with a bandage, but Cain had refused to send her to the medbay to get stitches. She had even refused to give her a med kit with morpha and a fresh bandage. Cain had kept her waiting in the briefing room for almost an hour, and in that time the pilot had discarded her used bandage. Cain knew the cut must have hurt. The lieutenant snapped to attention, but was slow to salute. When she did Cain made her hold her salute for a long time, straining the deep cut on her arm. When Cain finally let her drop the salute, she gestured for Sophie to have a seat.

"Well," Cain said pulling out a folder. "You racked up quite a kill today. What was it, four Raiders?"

Sophie fumed. The Admiral knew exactly how many she had shot down. "_Twenty_-four. Sir."

"And I see your last kill was unconventional, to say the least. After that Imperial pilot took the bullets, you literally turned your Viper into a bomb. Right?"

Sophie nodded. "Well," Cain said, walking closer to Sophie until they were only a couple of feet apart, "Usually a pilot gets a metal for that kind of thinking. But do you know why you won't?"

Without waiting for an answer Cain the folder containing Sophie's records at the floor, causing a loud bang. Sophie jumped back instinctively. "Because you sent the fighter right at the main guns of our ship. As it is, almost all of them need serious repairs, and a couple we can't even fix. Did you notice that you were flying a intercept course with the _Pegasus_ when you ejected?!" Sophie thought about that for a second. She _had _been on a intercept course, but not only had it been the last thing on her mind, even if she had just punched out the Raider would have shredded her ship.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" she said in a tight, controlled voice.

"_Denied!_" Cain shouted, unleashing all of her frustrations and anger on the Viper pilot, knowing that the pilot had done nothing wrong. "You just had to save the Imperial pilot. Well guess what?! If they lost a pilot and a fighter, well, they can just make more. But you felt a need to save the pilot, and for that you crippled the offensive capabilities of this ship!" Cain knew she was pushing it, and was not surprised when Sophie took a few steps in her direction, eyes blazing.

"Frak you sir! It wasn't my fault that the Raider crashed into the ship, and it sure as hell isn't my fault that some freak accident made the guns explode. It's also not my fault Gina Inviere turned out to be a Cylon-"

At the same time Sophie realized that her big mouth had made her cross a line, Cain punched her in the gut. Doubling over, she didn't see the kick that knocked her to the ground. As Sophie struggled to stand up, Cain kicked her again, this time in the chest, and she felt some ribs give way. Sophie collapsed back to the ground. Cain grabbed her by the collar of her flight suit and hauled her up into a standing position. Cain looked at her for a few seconds. When the pilot finally was able to stand up, Cain said. "If it weren't for the fact that you are one of our only pilots, and I need you to train some new ones from the civvies, I would shoot you right now for insubordination, and recklessly endangering all of the people on this ship."

Sophie tried not to roll her eyes. Cain was famous for making up charges just to get someone to the brig. Sophie had tried to be on her best behavior, and it had been a whole three weeks since she had been to the brig. Usually she didn't mind; she had spent lots of time with the fraking pilot, the one who ruined her, in the brig and various jail cells. But something happened to the crew after the incident with the _Gorgon_ and all the deaths that came after the attacks. The men who went to the brig sometimes looked like they had been physically assaulted, and the one woman who went to the brig…Sophie remembered her. Her name was Petty Officer Sarah Cholampter. She protested one of Cain's orders and had immediately been sent to the brig for "sowing mutiny aboard a Battlestar in a time of war". When she came out of the brig she wouldn't talk and freaked out if anyone came near her. She committed suicide the same day she was let out. Sarah was her friend. Sure enough, Cain called some Marines, looking for all the world like shaved apes, and they started to drag her to the brig. She knew she wouldn't allow herself to go to the brig. She'd die first. She put up no struggle, waiting until they were about two thirds of the way to the brig when she saw her opportunity. It was a hatch leading to causeway 25H. It led to her "hidey hole", the place she illegally stored all of her precious possessions, like Ambrosia, some really good but cheap cigars from Picon…and automatic carbine with lots of ammo. She never knew why she had "borrowed" it from the arms locker, maybe she knew that something like this was bound to happen one day. Her sidearm had been confiscated by the marines, and she had a feeling she might need it.

She waited until they were only twenty feet from the catch and until they were alone, and then she purposely stumbled. With a sigh, one of the marines turned to pull her to her feet. Lighting quick, she snapped up and drove a knee into his groin. His eyes widened, and he fell to the floor, moaning in pain. As the other marine turned to get her she side-stepped around him and slipped her handcuffed hands over his head and pulled, chocking him. When he finally lost consciousness, she let him fall to the floor. Then she kicked the first marine in the head, knocking him out. She awkwardly picked up his gun, because it was hard to move her arms when she was handcuffed. She tucked the gun into her pants, crawled into the hatch and closed it behind her. Now only about half an hour of crawling to go.

--

"How the frak did she escape?!" Admiral Cain had been in her quarters, trying to figure out how to repair the damage to her ship, when she had heard that Deadbolt had somehow taken down two Marines and was loose on the ship. Only one of the two Marines was reporting to her, the other one was unconscious due to a lack of oxygen when he was chocked. He'd be okay, but wouldn't be awake for another hour or two. The other Marine was not sure how to respond. Part of his mind wanted to claim that she had help, instead of the painful truth that a woman had bested him. But the other part of him knew that lying to the Admiral could have deadly consequences. He described the sequence of events. Cain shook her head. Not only did she have idiot pilots but now she had incompetent Marines that couldn't even take a frak up pilot to the brig!

Cain closed her eyes for a minute, and the Marine shifted from foot to foot, obviously nervous. Finally, she spoke. "Find her. Get together a team, get some people from that Star Destroyer if you have to. I have a feeling that she won't be found easily. Go. Find her."

--

**Hope you liked it. I always thought of the crew on _Pegasus_ as a good crew that made bad choices. ****GalacticaCAG pointed out that Sophie should have had protection against the cold with her EV suit, but I really needed to write it in that way. Thanks for reading, and please review!  
**


	10. Defender of the Angel

**Wow, chapters in the double digits. Finally. For the reasons stated in the previous chapter, this is a bit shorter than usual.  
**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own all of this, just a few characters.  
**

**Spoilers: Not much.**

--

**Chapter 10- Defender of the Angel**

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer **_**Gorgon**_

After a few hours Daala had finally healed and was coherent again. She walked from the medbay to the auxiliary control room. It would take several hours of not moving to make enough repairs to the main bridge for it to be functional. She called over her new damage control officer. She just realized that this was the third damage control officer her ship had needed since the jump. The damage control officer walked over to her, his expression grim.

"Give me the bad news." she said.

"Yes sir. First, we lost seventeen TIEs. Sigma squadron, one of our bombers, got heavily hit, with eight down. Then we lost three from Omega, a Starfighter squadron, three from Epsilon, another Starfighter, and two from Drake, one the interceptors. We were able to recover two pilots. Capitan Repness and Lieutenant Devruin. Major Brimfane is dead."

Daala let out a hiss of anger. They just lost their lead pilot.

The officer continued. We sustained moderate damage to our structural integrity, and we won't be able to repair that unless we have a long stay in a shipyard. We lost one of our heavy turbolaser batteries, and multiple lasers and turbolasers along the ship. We have severe damage at the bow of the ship, if it takes any more it's the forward forty meters may just be blasted off."

Daala looked at him. The expression on his face said that he had such bad news that he really did want to tell her.

The officer looked at her and took a depth breath. "The long range nav computer is gone. Not just damaged, but gone. It took a direct hit from a nuclear tipped missile. Even if we return to their home colonies, they wouldn't have the technology to repair it. And our fighter's nav computers aren't designed to have that kind of range." He didn't have to add that now they had no way of getting back to the known galaxy, or even know how far outside it they were. They only knew that their star charts did not match the stars around them.

After dismissing the officer, Daala walked over to the medbay. She had to know how Kirana was doing.

--

**Battlestar **_**Pegasus**_**, BSG-62**

Sophie had finally made it to her spot. A Battlestar was a bigger place that it looked like, and it looked pretty big. She had found a little closet that probably hadn't been ever used, way in the bowels of the ship. Only mechanics came here, and then only rarely. She also knew that the room was not on any map of the ship. She opened the door and slipped inside. It was probably about ten feet by ten feet with an eight foot ceiling. It had two ways in and three ways out. There were to doors that could be used to open it, but for some reason there was a little trap door in the bottom that led to causeway 18W. It was a twelve foot fall from the door, cushioned by some pillows. When she had created this place she had no idea whatsoever why she was doing it.Sometimes she didn't even remember getting some off the objects. She sat down on the floor, reached up into on of the helves for a bottle of Ambrosia, took a swig…and noticed a few cases that she didn't remember putting there. Curious, she grabbed the case and lowered it the ground.

She almost dropped it, surprised at the weight of the case. it must have weighed at least 75 pounds. Even more curious, she opened the case. When she saw that contents she gasped and stepped back. The case had twenty blocks of G-4 and detonators. Franticly, she pulled out all the other cases, all five of them. All had twenty blocks and detonator. 100 five pound bricks. 500 ponds of ultra-dense reactive explosives. That was than enough to blow a hole it the hull of a Battlestar. She remembered that about a week after she joined the Battlestar someone had stolen about 10,000 pounds of explosives. They had investigated for almost half a year, but never found a trace.

_2 years ago, Battlestar _Pegasus

Sophie was in her quarters; celebrating both her birthday and her promotion to captain in her bunk, with a very big bottle of Ambrosia in one hand a lit cigar in the other. She was the only one in the room; all the other pilots were probably on shore leave. She had just put the cigar in her mouth when there was a knocking on the bunk room door. She tried to ignore it, but the pounding continued. With a sigh, she slid out of her bunk and opened the door, reveling two Military Police. She was about to see if she could order them away when she noticed their rank insignia. A major and a captain. It was highly unusual for high ranking officers to go pounding on doors. She looked them over, noticing that their hands were nowhere near their sidearms. That was a good sign. She cleared her throat, which was a bit scratchy after the Ambrosia and the cigar.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

The MP nodded. "May we come in?" the major asked. Sophie knew that he didn't have to ask permission, especially since it wasn't her room. After she let then in, the major sat down at the table in the middle of the room.

The captain checked each bunk to see if they were occupied and then waved a portable electronic sweeper around. "Clear." he said. Sophie also took a seat, across from the major.

"What we are about to discuss in classified. You may not discuss it with anyone, regardless of rank, unless directly authorized by the Admiralty."

Sophie blanched. The MP continued. "This morning over 10,000 pounds of G-4 explosive was stolen from multiple Battlestars. _Pegasus_ was the hardest hit, with all of its explosives gone. We know it wasn't any of the crew, so it had to be visitors to the ship. We were hoping you could help us find and investigate a friend of yours. Kara Thrace."

--

_Present time_

**Imperial Star Destroyer **_**Gorgon**_

Daala walked into the medbay and saw Kirana sitting on a chair. She had just gotten out of the bacta tank. She stood up and saluted. "At ease." Daala said. "How are you feeling?"

Kirana smiled. "Just glad to see that you are well, sir."

Daala resisted the urge to sigh. Typical Kirana, never worried about herself. Kirana ventured a question. "Is Araeya alive?"

Daala shook her head. Kirana's face remained the same, but for a brief moment Daala could see hurt in her eyes. But as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished. "Kirana, I want to go to the captured Basestar. Would you like to come with me?"

Kirana nodded her head. "Yes sir."

--

**Basestar 201**

Daala walked the halls of the Basestar, accompanied by Kirana and a Stormtrooper acting as their guide. With the help of the captured Cylons, Imperial technicians had restored atmosphere to most of the ship. When they entered the control room they found the Two and the Six.

"Well," she said, addressing them, "It's nice to see you two again. I know you as Leoben and Gina. Do you have different names, or should I just use your numbers.

The Two didn't hesitate. "You can call me Leoben, but I'm not the one you captured." The Six took a moment before responding. "You may call me Natalie."

--

They made their way to the room of the hybrid. She was in her tank, and at once it was obvious what was wrong. She was sitting there, not moving, and a chunk was blasted off of the tank, and before a patch had been hastily slapped on her tank her goo had been draining. She was just staring in space, repeating:

"Must jump, FTL offline/End of line. Must jump, FTL offline/End of line."

Daala looked at the prisoners. "Does she usually do this?"

Leoben shook his head. "She usually talks of ship functions and other lines. Many believe that they are ramblings, but they are not. Perhaps she has seen God. To know the face of God-"

"-is to know madness, yes I've heard it before." Daala leaned down over the tank, staring into the hybrid's eyes. Suddenly it reached up and grabbed her by the neck, pulling her head down until their faces were only inches apart. Daala's escorts instantly trained their blasters on the hybrid, but didn't dare fire in fear of hitting the Admiral. The hybrid looked into her eyes and spoke softly enough so that Daala was the only one who could hear her.

"You are the outsider who comes to destroy us/You are not one of us/End of line. You must find the thirteenth defender of the angel who is hunted on the son of Poseidon. End of line." After that she released Daala and began reciting the same FTL offline sentence again.

Daala cocked her head. The son of Poseidon? Who was Poseidon? She turned to the Cylons. "Who's the son of Poseidon?" she asked. Natalie looked startled by the question, but Leoben did not. He had spent enough time listening to the hybrid to know that it had told her something.

"The sun of Poseidon is Pegasus, the winged horse."

Daala though that over. Pegasus. Battlestar _Pegasus_? Someone was being hunted on the Battlestar _Pegasus_? Then she remembered. A request had been sent to the _Gorgon_ about finding a pilot who had escaped while on the way to the brig. Was the pilot the "defender" the hybrid had talked about? Daala didn't know why, but she felt that the hybrid was talking about somthing importatn. she had to find the pilot, and she knew just the person the help her. But first she had to do somthing. She talked to the Stormtrooper next to her without turning her head. "Trooper, have you installed our power generator and computer control systems?"

"Yes sir."

"Good." She drew her blaster from her belt, flicked the safety off, and shot he hybrid in the for head, burning a neat hole into it. Immediately all lights went out in the Basestar, before flickering back on. Both Cylons were rooted to the spot, incredulous. It was one thing to have the hybrid die on battle, but this?

Daala holstered her blaster and shrugged unapologetically. "If we plan to use this Basestar we can't exactly have a Cylon controlling it, now can we?"

Leoben had a smile on his face. "That's not why you killed her." he said. She looked at him. "You knew she was speaking to you, and you were afraid."

Daala didn't know how to answer that. Shaking her head, she walked back to the shuttle that would take her to the _Gorgon_.

--

**Well, that's the chapter. The next one should hopefully be up soon. And just to clarify, Kirana has nothing to do with Kirana Ti, just took the same name and didn't notice it until GalacticaCAG said so. Also, Natalie was my favorite Six model and I was very unhappy about her short lifespan in the show, so she will be appearing throughout the story. Please review!**


	11. Recovery Operation

**I'm not sure how this chapter cane out, but I hope you all like it. I'm really trying to meet up with the _Galactica_ soon, but there's one or two things that need to happen first.**

**A note: This story is obviously AU. I did add on my own characters, but I also had to do something else. In one of the flashbacks there is a big issue with timing, and where there someone is on one Battlestar or another, or whether someone died or not. That may or may not make sense, but I have to bend the rules a little for this particular part of the story.**

**Disclaimer: Only own a couple  
**

**Spoilers: Not much at all.**

--

**Chapter 11- Recovery Operation**

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer **_**Gorgon**_

Talon Devruin was in his quarters, resting. He looked at his left arm, and then at his right. They both looked the same and felt the same, except for the unnatural strength it gave him, but something just felt _wrong_ about having a mechanical right arm. The prosthetic limb went all the way up and encompassed part of his shoulder. Fortunately, the doctors said that he was a good fit for the arm and should be in flying condition within a week. He was about to try to fall asleep when the intercom buzzed.

"Lieutenant Devruin, report to the briefing room. Repeat, Lieutenant Devruin, report to the briefing room."

With a groan, he stumbled out of his bunk and walked down to the briefing room. When he got there he skidded to a halt. Their were three occupants in the room, Guardswoman Forr, Capitan Repness, his squadron leader, and Admiral Daala herself. He tried to salute but misjudged the momentum with his new arm and just ended up hitting himself on the head. Blushing, he more carefully raised his arm in a salute. A ghost of a smile flickered across Daala's face. "At ease." she said. Lieutenant Devruin, you pilot, or piloted, a TIE Starfighter in Omega squadron, right?"

Talon nodded.

"I'm sure you're aware," she continued, "that you are the best pilot on the ship, a fact the Captain Repness will attest to. A pilot of your caliber should be flying a Interceptor, and have at least a rank of captain. In fact, I do believe that you have been offered that position many times ago, yet each time you turn down the promotion. Why?"

Talon cleared his throat. "You're right, I am a better pilot than most of the others on board this ship. That's why less experienced pilots should take the Interceptors. They'll live longer."

"That may be true, but you are the best we have. And we almost lost you. You're lucky that your arm was fit able for a prosthetic, or you would have lost enough mobility in that arm that you would only be able to fly shuttles. And, as I'm sure you're aware, Major Brimfane is dead. So, we need a lead pilot. I have a mission for you. After the mission you will accept a promotion to major. We have to skip the rank of captain because you will be our lead pilot. You will assume the position of Drake Lead. And I personally couldn't care less if you want the promotion. But first, we have a problem. I assume you remember the pilot you saved."

Talon nodded. How could he not? He also knew that the fighter that she had downed had crashed into the _Pegasus_.

"Well," Daala continued, "She is in a bit of trouble. Cain ordered her sent to the brig on ridicules charges, but she took down two marines and is in hiding. I need to find her for….personal reasons."

Talon briefly wondered why the Admiral wanted to talk to the pilot, but he quickly put that out of his mind. He had his orders, and it was not his place to question Daala's commands. "And why do you need me Admiral?"

"Because you may be the only one that can get her to come out of hiding. You saved her, and she saved you. That sounds like a bond to me. We'll go to the _Pegasus_ together. "I don't think you should pilot the shuttle until you spend a little more time in the simulators." she said, referencing his earlier blunder with saluting. "Come on," she said, "let's go."

--

**Battlestar**_** Pegasus**_**, BSG-62**

When the _Lambda_ shuttle docked in the upper starboard hanger bay, Daala was pleased to see that most of the _Pegasus_'s Vipers had been retrieved by their shuttles. Unfortunately, almost all of the pilots had been sucked into space without a fully sealed suit, so it was vital even to Cain that Deadbolt was to be taken alive, to train more pilots. Daala had looked over her transcript which had been forwarded from Cain along with the request for the search. What Daala couldn't understand is why she felt she had to escape. She had been in the hack multiple times before the nuclear holocaust, and had been their three times before the _Gorgon_ had shown up. Daala would make sure that Cain dropped all charges against the pilot. Daala had control over Cain, considering that she could blast the heavily damaged Battlestar out of the sky with almost no effort. But Daala had made the decision to help repair the _Pegasus_'s main batteries and engines, along with their own bridge. The disadvantage to the plan was that they couldn't move for almost a week, and would have to rely on the fighters for defense. But Daala's technicians had reported that the captured Basestar not only was adapting well with the replacement of the hybrid with their computer systems, but it also could "heal" itself, regenerating damaged parts. It also had a small production facility that could turn out three or four Raiders per day. To ensure that the Raiders wouldn't be loyal to the Cylons, they had their organic material replaced with droid brains. Unfortunately, that meant that they would be recognized as enemies by the Cylons. The Basestar could prove incredibly useful as a weapons platform. It had yet to be named, and the were still sorting out how to crew it, as a force of Stormtroopers could not be trained well enough to operate it. She was thinking of getting some of the _Pegasus_ crew members to join.

Daala also wanted to check on Cain's prisoners. Gina had murdered an Imperial soldier and would be sentenced to death. Suna Yres would be a bit more difficult, but most of the negations would be whether Cain decided her fate or if Daala did.

As they stepped off the ramp they were greeted by two big marines, the same ones that had been taken down by Deadbolt. They wasted no time in speaking.

"We've searched every inch of the ship. We know she hasn't left. All Raptors are accounted for and DRADIS logs are clean."

Daala gestured for Kirana to join the conversation. Royal Guards were trained in search operations.

"Well, if she's not in any room on the ship, could she be _in _the ship?"

The marine with a mark on his throat, probably from being strangled into unconsciousness, sneered at her. He had very little respect for women. "We've searched every place on the map, including causeways. She's not here."

Kirana sighed. "Help me get some equipment from the shuttle."

She walked back to the shuttle with the Marines in tow. She had brought four advanced heavy duty life scanners. She planed to attach them to the walls of four places in the corridors, scanning for life in the bowels of the ship. She grabbed two of them and walked back to where Daala and Talon were standing. The Marines each grabbed a container…and ended up having to drag them out of the shuttle. They were heavier than they looked. Embarrassed, the marines dragged the containers through the corridor. They placed the scanners in the ends of the ship and activated them.

--

Sophie was unsure of what to do. If she reported the G-4, she would be tossed in the brig and suspected of being a traitor. But she had only found a fraction of what was stolen. She wondered if Cain knew about the investigation.

--

_Two years ago, Battlestar _Galactica,BSG-75

Sophie walked out of the Raptor that had carried her to the _Galactica_ and headed to the enlisted officers quarters. She had just seen Kara a couple of day ago. Kara was up for promotion. She was going to go from lieutenant junior grade to senior lieutenant. Sophie was scared for Kara. She knew Kara couldn't of stolen any G-4, that just wasn't Kara. But their really wasn't any other suspect. She had made sure that she could have a private chat with Kara before those goons got to her. She rapped twice on the door. She heard someone come to the door. The door opened and a man she had never seen opened. "Is Starbuck here?" she asked.

He just grunted and pointed to one of the bunks. She slipped past him and waled to the bunk she was in. "Kara?" she said.

Kara looked up from the book she had been reading and saw Sophie. "Hey," she said, "what are you doing here?"

Sophie looked around the bunk room. The only other occupant were the male pilot. Sophie turned to him. "Out." she said.

He looked at her like she was crazy. "You can't tell me to get out of here. This is my frakking room."

Sophie reached into her left pocket and pulled out a sheet of folded paper. Unfolding it, she shoved it in the pilot's face. "Se this? This is a direct order from Admiral Corman. Unless you'd like to take it up with him, I suggest you leave. The pilot leaned in close to look at the paper, and when he read it he wasted no time in getting out of the room.

Kara let out a classic Starbuck laugh, obviously thinking the paper was a joke. "A letter from a admiral. I'll have to remember that one. What'd you do, forge his signature or something?"

Sophie didn't laugh. She handed the paper over to Kara. Her smile quickly disappeared. It was real. "Frak me." She looked at Sophie. "What's this all about?"

Sophie ran her fingers through her hair unconsciously, something she did when she was very nervous. Kara had known Sophie long enough to recognize that, and she knew something was wrong. "I could go to prison for telling you this Kara. A couple of days ago someone cleaned out all of the Peg's G-4. Got a hell of a lot of it from other Battlestars, too."

Kara's eyes widened. "And where do I fit into this?"

"They think you might have done it. You're the only suspect. Everyone was accounted for on the Battlestar. They figure you must have stolen it during the hour you had between leaving my quarters and boarding the Raptor that took you back to the old bucket. Where were you?"

Kara shrugged. "Mostly in the hanger, checking out the Mk.VIIs. We only have a handful here."

"Damn. No one else can remember seeing you during that time. And let me tell you something. Even though the investigation has only been going a few days, the trails are cold. They have some suspects for other ships, but you're it for the Pegasus. And to tell you the truth, the investigation's probably going black. They'll keep up the search, but they want a scapegoat. And with your disciplinary record, you're a perfect candidate."

Kara narrowed her eyes. "How did you get involved in this?"

"Mostly because of you, actually. They want me to get information on you. They said that I could uncover information proving your innocence, but that's a load of crap. They just wasn't me to find something that could remotely prove that your are somewhat guilty. I pulled every favor I have just to get to talk to you alone."

"And why are you sure I didn't do it?"

"Because I know you. You may be a frak up, just like me, but there's no chance you did it."

Kara smiled. They were both frak ups, but they were still able to function reasonably well within the military. "And how's Zak?" Kara asked.

Sophie smiled. "Good. He came on the left right before you came on the Raptor. It's to bad you haven't met him yet."

"I still can't believe you're dating the son of the Galactica's commander." Kara said.

"Once I get you out of this I'll introduce you."

--

_Present time_

Just remembering hurt. After all these years, Sophie still couldn't believe that Kara had stolen him from her.

She crawled out of her space and walked over to one of the access shafts. She kept going until she found a bundle of wires. Perfect. She could tap into the communications system. Using a trick she had learned long ago, she took her digital assistant and typed in some words.

STOLEN BLOCKS OF G-4 ABOARD SHIP. WILL RETURN.

Perfect. Now she just had to splice it into the personal communication wire. She connected the digital assistant and sent the message directly to Cain's quarters. Now she just had to wait a few hours. Then maybe she could figure out where the rest of the G-4 was.

--

Right after Kirana set the last scanner and turned it on the system detected one human-sized life form. It was at causeway 25 H. Kirana motioned over Talon. He came over and peered at the sensor. "She's way deep in the ship. I'll go and flush her out. You go to here," she said, indicating a spot on the map, "and talk her into surrendering. Take those two Marines with you. Go."

As Talon and the two Marines headed to one spot, Kirana slipped into the hatch leading to causeway 25H. Not only was the hatch right next to the spot she had escaped from, it also lead to the spot where the pilot had been detected. Toggling on the map in her helmet, Kirana sliced her way into the ship until she was only 20 meters from the source of head. If she could, Kirana would take down the pilot and bring her back. If not she would just chase the pilot into the area where Talon was waiting.

--

Sophie was on the way back to her room when she heard a noise. It was actually barley even a noise, just the rustle of something moving. Suspicious, she quickened up her pace. She was only a foot away from the door when everything started happening fast.

--

Kirana didn't know what had startled the pilot, but whatever it had been was enough. As Sophie made a dash to the door, Kirana jumped down from the cable she had been perched on. She wasn't able to reach her in time. Sophie rushed inside and slammed the door shut. Kirana stopped and looked at the door. By observing the room that it led to she could tell it had two doors. While she could easily get in, chances were that the pilot had some kind of weaponry. A head on approach could be fatal for either or both of them. While she was pondering what to do she detected movement on her sensor The pilot's life signature was moving away from the room. But how was that possible? She hadn't come out of the room. Kirana dashed in, but all she found was a empty makeshift living area. There was no sign of her.

--

Sophie barely had time to shut and latch the door before the thing in armor came dashing in. She thought it might have been one of those Imperial Guards, but she was not about to find out. She grabbed the carbine, her digital assistant (you never knew when they would come in handy), a horrible tasting ration, and of course, a few stogies. She went to the middle of the room and stomped hard on it. The door underneath her opened, and she fell the twelve feet before landing on a pile of pillows. Just like she had planned. The trap door above her was on a spring mechanism, so it automatically closed when she had left it.

She made sure she had all of her possessions before she started to sprint down 18W, afraid that the armored woman was on her tail. She rounded a corner and saw three men running in her direction. A man she had never seen before and the two Marines that she had humiliated. Frak. She automatically stopped and raised her rifle, its barrel pointing at them. So this was it. She could either surrender and head to the brig or take these three down, steal a Raptor and get blown up in the process of trying to escape to nowhere. Not a very good set of choices. As she peered down the sight of the rifle at them, she could see them. She had a choice to make.

--

Talon had disobeyed orders from Kirana when he had seen Sophie's blip start to move. He had ran down the paths of the Battlestar at a pace the Marines could barely match. Using his feelings, not his thoughts or equipment, he steered towards Deadbolt. Something was telling him that she was close. And sure enough there she was, wielding a wicked looking SA-80 assault rifle. Time seemed to slow down for him. There she was, pointing a deadly rifle at him. It was a standoff. At least until the crack of the bullet filled the hallway.

--

**Well, there it is! The problem I was referring to is whether Zak is alive in the flashbacks or not. I just had the idea floating around in my head that maybe Kara didn't have Zak first. Anyway, please review! It lets me know of any problems in the story!**


	12. Back from the Grave

**I don't know how well I did this chapter, but I kind of like it.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. Well, I do own a few, but just the ones that I made up.  
**

**Spoilers: 33, Pegasus  
**

--

**Chapter 12- Back from the Grave  
**

--

**Battlestar_ Pegasus_, BSG-62**

Sophie was about to drop her gun when one of the Marines raised his assault rifle and fired. The carbine's three round burst almost killed her. The first bullet passed only three inches above her head. The second grazed her, ripping a hole in the flight suit that she was still wearing, and the third hit her rifle, smashing it. The impact threw her to the ground. When she hit she evaluated her options. _Well, I'm sure not going to just sit here and let him kill me. Obviously Cain doesn't want me alive anymore._ She drew her sidearm, the same one she had captured from the marines, and fired on the second Marine, who was also aiming his gun at her. Reluctant to kill, she fired two rounds, both impacting in the chest. The force of the two slugs against his armor threw he against a wall, and knocked the breath out of him. He would be back up in about twenty seconds, but this would be over by then. She tried to take aim at the first marine, the one that had fired at her first. But as she shifted her aim she knew that there was no way she could get off a hot before that Marine shot her. She closed her eyes. This wasn't how she expected that she was going to die, and she sure as hell wasn't going to Elysium. Why the hell was it taking the Marine so long to shoot?

--

For a second Talon was confused about what was going on. The shot didn't come from her, there was no muzzle flash from her gun. He turned to see one of the marines blazing away at her with his rifle. Idiot. The Marine's wounded pride caused him to disobey direct orders from _two_ different admirals. He saw her rifle shatter, her fall to the ground, and he saw her shoot the other Marine, who was in the process of drawing his weapon. Shifting his attention back to the other Marine, he noticed that his finger was on the trigger. The Marine had already made his decision. He would shoot her, and then claim it was in self defense, which would hold up considering she had fired too. Now that he thought of it, the Marines would probably shoot him too, because he was bound to report what really happened. He pulled back with his right arm and punched the Marine on the neck with his mechanical hand. He heard a sickening snap, and the Marine fell down, his head at a unnatural angle. He hadn't meant to kill the Marine, but the force of his new arm had snapped his neck. As he fell he accidentally triggered a burst a Sophie, causing her to dive for cover. The marine who had been knocked down by Sophie's shots was getting up. He had just seen his partner be killed, albeit accidentally, by Talon. He raised himself into a crouch, and aimed his pistol at Talon. Talon reflexively raised his hand, as if to stop the bullet. But the Marine didn't fire. Instead, he flew backward and slammed into a wall, knocking him out. Talon looked around for what had caused the Marine to fly back. Deadbolt was on the ground, just getting up. It hadn't been her, and their was no one else in the corridor. He was trying to figure out what happened when he heard the noise of a gun cocking. He turned around to see Sophie holding a pistol at him.

--

Sophie had watched as he killed Marine with one punch. That was pretty amazing, but it was topped by the way he had dealt with the other Marine. Maybe it was some kind of new weapon that projected a force field to blow someone back. Or something like that. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it. But then she wasn't sure what to make of him. His uniform was strange, and he defiantly wasn't from the _Pegasus_. She aimed her gun and cocked it. He must have heard the noise, because he turned around to face her. Seeing the gun, he put his hands up.

"Who the frak are you?" she demanded.

"Lieutenant Talon Devruin, 952nd TIE Wing, Star Destroyer _Gorgon_, Maw Facility."

She blinked at that. _What_?

He suppressed a chuckle. "I'm a fighter pilot of the Star Destroyer. I believe you know me. I was the TIE pilot."

He didn't have to say anything else. There was only one person he could be referring to.

Sophie narrowed her eyes. "And why are you here?"

"To convince you to come out of hiding. All charges have been dropped."

Sophie snorted. "Yeah, right. Cain's notorious for holding a grudge. The hells will freeze over before she drops any charges."

"Admiral Daala ordered Cain to drop the charges. She has the power to do that. I don't know why, but Daala wants to meet with you really bad."

Sophie gestured to the Marines lying on the floor. "And them? They tried to kill me."

"They weren't supposed to. I guess they really wanted you dead. They seemed very humiliated."

"How did you take them down like that?"

Talon shrugged. "My right arm is mechanical. They had to amputate it after I took a hit from that Raider's KEW. Fortunately I should be able to fly soon. But I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't know my strength when I hit."

"And the other Marine?"

"I have no idea."

Before they could continue the conversation any longer, they heard a loud bang. A section of the ceiling right over their heads fell down, followed by Kirana. She landed on her feet, a blaster rifle trained on Sophie. She looked at the two Marines. "Looks like I missed all the excitement. I'll comm for a med team, and then let's go meet up with Daala."

--

When Sophie realized that they were going to the brig she started to freak out, but Talon assured her that they were going there because that's were Daala was. She didn't know why, but she trusted him.

When they made it to the holding cells, Daala was waiting for them. She looked Sophie up and down, studying her. The only difference between the picture of her on file and her image was her eyes. Daala could see tightly controlled fury and pain. She had suffered in the past. Interesting.

"Lieutenants," she said to Talon and Deadbolt, "and Guardswoman Forr. I was just inside the holding cells. I planned to speak to the Cylon prisoners. However, they won't talk. I was hoping some one from the _Pegasus_ could enlighten me as to what happened here. "

Daala pushed to door open. The four of them stepped inside. The two Cylons were in separate cells. They could not see each other or look out the window of the holding cells, but due to the design of the widow observers could see in. They were both lying on the floor, not moving. They were dressed in ragged, minimal clothes. They were obviously traumatized, but had not sign of physical injury on them.

Talon's looked on the scene in disgust, as his opinion of the _Pegasus_ dropped another notch.

"They've been raped, haven't they." Daala said to Sophie. It wasn't a question.

Sophie nodded. "Something changed once you arrived. The ship was just suddenly filled with hate. Hate at the Cylons. I mean, sure, we despised them for nuking our worlds, but this is new. And it's not just Cylons. My only friend on this ship was brought up on charges of mutiny. It was complete bullshit, of course, but the people on this ship, they wanted someone to hurt. We didn't have any Cylons, so they took it out on the prisoners. One knuckle dragger almost got beat to death. The people on this ship aren't bad, with the exception of a few. We're just lost. All of us. Cain doesn't order this, but she know what's going on. She just turns a blind eye to it."

While Daala was taking that in, she noticed that Kirana wasn't moving. "Kirana?" she said.

She didn't reply. "Guardswoman Forr! Attention!"

At that Kirana automatically snapped to attention. Daala gazed into the dark visor of Kirana's helmet. What was wrong with her? It's a shocking sight, but she never gets shocked at anything. She's brutally killed people in hand to hand combat, mostly at training, but nothing like this.

"Forr, are you fit for duty?"

Kirana took a while to reply. "Yes sir."

"The hell you are. Report back to the shuttle. We'll be joining you shortly."

Kirana saluted, and then walked back to the ship.

Daala let out a deep breath. "Well, I should of expected something like this, but I didn't. Even on a machine, that's not right. Let's get back to the _Gorgon_. We'll talk more on the shuttle. You too, Narcasa. I have permission from Cain to take you back to my ship. Lets go.

--

**Bravo 3, _Lambda _Shuttle**

As the shuttle took off, Kirana remained seated in the back of the shuttle. It was obvious that Sophie wanted to take a look at the cockpit of the shuttle. Daala noticed that, and motion towards the door. "Come on, we'll show you the front. Devruin, show her around."

Talon and Sophie walked up to the door of the cockpit. He rapped on the door, and it opened. "Come on." He said, and escorted him into the cramped cockpit. He evicted the copilot from his seat, and sat down in it. Sophie took the observer's seat. She leaned right past Talon's head to see the instruments and controls. He was suddenly aware of their close proximity. For the first time he was aware of how attractive she was. He was about to tell her what some of the controls were when the sensor board started buzzing.

The shuttle pilot turned to him. "We have a contact, unknown class, slow speed, intercept course with our ships."

Talon quickly got out of his seat and ducked into the main cabin. "Admiral, we have a unknown contact."

In a instant, Daala was in the door way. The cockpit was getting a little cramped, but everyone was to focused on the sensor to care.

Daala was the first to speak. "Interrogate that ships IFF, see if we get anything. Get me a line to the _Pegasus_."

The pilot gave a headset to Daala. "I'm getting a secure line to the _Pegasus_."

Daala spoke into the microphone. "_Pegasus_, this is Admiral Daala in shuttle Bravo 3."

Cain's voice came over the speakers. "Admiral Daala, this is _Pegasus_ Actual. We read one contact on DRADIS, CBDR. Do you concur?"

"Yes. We tried to identify it, but we're getting nothing."

"Us too, wait a second…We're getting Colonial recognition codes. Stand by."

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

Cain had been in the CIC when Hoshi first called out. "DRADIS contact, unknown ship, slow speed, bearing 058, carom 103, CBDR. Checking codes.

Cain's comm officer turned twoars her. "Sir, Admiral Daala is requesting a private line."

"Put her through."

Cain picked up the phone. She heard Daala over the wireless. "_Pegasus_, this is Admiral Daala in shuttle Bravo 3."

"Admiral Daala, this is _Pegasus_ Actual. We read one contact on DRADIS, CBDR. Do you concur?"

Daala seemed a bit worried, but the comm distortion made it hard to tell. Their ships were immobile until the repairs were complete, Cain currently had no pilots, and the Basestar as not fully functional. It had managed to turn out two Raiders, but that was it. They had to rely on the Imperial fighters, which, while deadly, were not enough to protect against Basestars.

"Yes. We tried to identify it, but we're getting nothing." Daala answered.

"Us too-" she was interrupted in mid sentence by Hoshi.

"Admiral," he said, "we're getting Colonial Recognition signals.

She picked up the comm. "Wait a second…We're getting Colonial recognition codes. Stand by."

"Mr. Hoshi, verify those signals."

"I already did. And we're getting a transmission from the contact."

"Put it on the speakers."

A squeal of static came through the speakers, followed by a male voice. "Thank the gods, we finally found someone. It's a miracle."

Cain spoke into the phone. "Unidentified ship, this is the Battlestar _Pegasus_. Identify yourself."

"Sorry. This is Captain Ben Jecks. We're the _Olympic Carrier_."

--

**Okay, a few things. I do know that at the end of 33, when Apollo and Starbuck shot down the _Olympic Carrier_ it blew up in a spectacular way. I'm not changing that fact, so it'll be interesting ahead. Also, I do think that the people on the Peg are just lost, not bad (with the exception of Cain she's a bit evil).**

**As a last note, while I don't obsess over reviews, it is nice to know that people out here are reading your story. I'll write and post the chapters no matter what, but reviews are good motivators. **

**Now that that's over with, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and please review!**


	13. Something’s Wrong

**There is a event in this chapter which may seem ridiculous (or not). But just hang on, everything will be explained soon.  
**

**Disclaimer: I don't really own them, except for a couple. Not nearly enough, though.  
**

**Spoilers: Up to Scar, I guess, but nothing major.  
**

--

**Chapter 13- Something's Wrong**

--

_One hour ago, the Olympic Carrier_

"Are you sure you can do this?"

"Yes."

"No one will blame you if you can't. You'll get home, and no one will know."

"I can do it."

"If you can, remember, you'll have to wait for days, weeks, maybe months. And when it happens, no one can suspect you. No one. I know how much you miss them. You can't let that compromise the mission. At all."

"Yes."

"I know he said this would happen, and we all pray that it will. If you're detected, terminate yourself. We'll be in range."

"By your command."

--

**Raptor 316**

The Raptor the carried Cain had just departed from the _Pegasus_. Cain was sitting in the copilot's seat, watching the image of the _Olympic Carrier_ grow in the cockpit windshield. She had looked at what few records the had on it. It was a typical passenger carrier, presumed lost in the Cylon attack, just like thousands of identical ships. The _Caprica's Pride_, one of the civilian ships, was of the same class as her. She wondered about the ship. It couldn't just be a Cylon ship, the recognition codes were impossible to duplicate, they were so unique. Cain doubted that the Imperials would be able to duplicate them. But how did they survive?

The Raptor finally docked with the liner. Three Marines preceded Cain, rifles at the ready, searching for any threats. But there was only a short, plump and jovial man waiting for them.

"Greetings! You have no idea how good it is to see a Colonial uniform! It really is a miracle. Stuff like this makes you really believe in the gods. Why-"

"That's very nice, but we have some questions that need to be answered now."

"Of course. Ask away."

"How did you manage to evade the Cylons for so long?"

"Well, we've been jumping from place to place. We originally met up with a group of mining ships. We all tried to evade the Cylons, but one by one they picked us off. We found some Tylium, and managed to mine some before the Cylons found us again. We're almost out of fuel, and only have enough for a few more jumps."

Cain was not convinced. "And how in the world did you managed to hold off the Cylons until you spun up your FTLs?"

"Well, we were only attacked by some of those fighter craft, but never the big ships, so it took a bit longer to kill us off. But mainly we have one man to thank for survival. I believe he's coming up now."

Sure enough, a man walked into the cabin. He had piercing blue eyes, and was very muscular. He looked at Cain, then at her rank insignia. Noting that she was a admiral, he saluted sharply. "Captain Lee Adama reporting. It's good to see you, sir."

--

Cain took Lee back into the Raptor where they would have some privacy. She took a longer look at his face. He had a long, jagged scar that ran from his hairline down to his jaw, narrowly missing his left eye.

"Captain Adama, I'm very curious how you ended up with these civilians."

He shrugged. "I don't remember much, I think must have hit my head really bad. I just woke up in my Viper, with debris from some Cylon Raiders all around me, and some from Vipers too. About the same time as when I woke up the _Carrier_ jumped in. They took me and my Viper into her cargo bay. They had enough fuel for me, and we managed to gather some ammunition from the downed fighters. I managed to fight off the Cylons for a while, but then I ran out of ammunition. Lately I've just been running out there to scare them away. It hasn't worked very good, and it's how I got this." he said, indicating his scar.

Cain nodded. "I can believe that. Let's take you back to the _Pegasus_. We've got plenty of ammo there."

"Yes sir."

In all the commotion, no one noticed that a small figure dressed in a full EV suit had climbed onto the bottom of the Raptor, and was riding it to the _Pegasus_.

--

**Battlestar **_**Pegasus**_**, BSG-62**

Cain was in her quarters, mulling over the day's events. And there were a lot of them. Although she wasn't happy about Deadbolt getting off scotch free, the truth was that she hadn't done anything wrong. What really pissed her off was that Daala had made the decision by herself. It was a unfortunate fact of life that Daala could destroy the _Pegasus_. At least until they were repaired. A few salvos from the main guns, if they hit in the right spot, could be pretty damaging to that destroyer.

And the Marines. One dead, the other unconscious. She did believe that they had started the gun battle, and that the other was killed in defense of the pilot. Still…

Daala had found out about the prisoners. She didn't encourage her crew in what they had done, but she also pretended she hadn't heard about it. And this new ship. Something about it seemed wrong, just like this Lee Adama. Something wasn't quite right about him. She couldn't see anything wrong about him, it was more of a feeling. She shook her head. She wasn't thinking straight. Maybe it would be better in the morning.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer **_**Gorgon**_

Daala walked into the tactical planning room of her ship, followed by Talon and Sophie. Kirana was in her quarters. Daala had relived her of duty for the next few days, until she could figure out what was wrong with her. She had brought the two pilots with her to discuss some problems she was having.

She took as seat, and motioned for the pilots to also sit down.

"Well, now that all that's over, we have some things to talk about. Devruin, as you are aware, you are now Major. Also, Deadbolt, you've been promoted to Captain. Cain may not like you, but she needs a CAG. And the whole issue with the G-4 is on hold for now. Cain is pretty sure you didn't do it. After all, records say that you sent that message to Cain's quarters before we even started to search for you. Anyway, you're the CAG, at least until a few things get sorted out regarding this Apollo. Do you know anything about him?"

"Yes sir."

"What is it?"

"He's very by the book, honorable, and," she said, quoting her not-friend, "he has a stick up his ass."

Talon was obviously trying not to laugh, and Daala looked mildly amused. "And how do you know him?"

Sophie tensed. "I'd prefer not to say, sir."

"Noted. Say it anyway."

Sophie knew that Daala was not technically her superior officer, but the way things were going, that might change soon. And she had the impression that she was going to be on the Gorgon for a little bit.

"He was my boyfriend's brother."

"So would you say you know him well?"

"Never met him. I don't even think my boyfriend told him about me. But I heard he's a great stick."

"That's why I want your opinion on this. I took the gun camera footage from his fighter. Take a look."

She pushed a button, and a 2-D recording of his footage sprang to life on the holo projector. They saw the Viper close on a Raider. The Raider was flying straight and level, but even so the first few bursts missed, and the one that killed it only impacted on the wing, but for some reason it blew up in a spectacular explosion. Over and over, the same thing was shown. The Raiders didn't perform even the most basic evasive maneuvers, and blew up even if only one round hit. And no Raiders went head to head, and the telltale blue-white streams of Raider KEWs didn't even come close to hitting the Viper.

Sophie shook her head. "He's horrible. I mean, I've seen worse nuggets, but for an ace, well, it's horrible. And it looks like those Raiders are rigged to explode. Almost like they want him to think he's escaping."

"Or providing cover, if he's a Cylon." Talon added.

Daala shook her head. "We scanned him. He's not Cylon, but we were confused at first. The scan couldn't tell at first, and even then it had trouble deciding. So he's not Cylon, but I'm not sure if he's human either. And here's the thing. The difference between Cylon's and humans is very small. And from what we gather about their "final five", if we see them, our sensors will go off. It's almost like parts of him are Cylons and some aren't."

"What are you saying?" Sophie asked.

Daala shrugged. "I'm not saying anything. Just wanted your opinion."

They sat there, not saying anything. Then Sophie spoke up.

"Completely off topic, but what's the status of the Peg's main guns? Didn't one of them break off?"

"Yes. It's not completely destroyed, but it'll be too much work to put it back on."

"I was thinking we could put it in another ship. The Mirage was originally deigned as a military transport. It's big enough to hold the gun, and it's got pretty think hull plating. Not enough to protect against a nuke, but it could survive at least ten missile hits, and Raider strafing wouldn't do too much damage."

Daala shook her head. "The recoil from something like that could shake the ship apart."

Talon had a idea. "What if we took a couple shield generators from some of the TIEs? We could configure them to protect the ship from the recoil. And as long as we're scavenging some TIEs, we could mount the cockpits on the ship, maybe in swivel mounts or something like that allowed them to fire. Add any spare weapons you have and we could have a tactical assault ship. It has a hanger bay big enough to house Vipers, TIEs, or Raptors. Even if everything fails, the worst that will happen is we loose some spare parts and about half a day of work."

Sophie nodded. "I heard rumors that we're scavenging Colonial Heavy 535 and the Scylla for part to fix the _Pegasus_. Some of the engines from Heavy 535 could boost its speed."

Daala looked from one pilot to the other. "You two are really sold on this idea, aren't you? Draw up the plans, borrow a couple engineers. If you can get a working model, then we'll try the modifications. But first, I need help, especially from you, Deadbolt. Do you know someone named either Kara Thrace or Starbuck?"

Sophie looked like she had just been shot. How did they know about her?

"Captain!"

Sophie snapped out of her state. "Yes, admiral?"

"I said, do you know this Starbuck?"

"Yes sir."

"Is she a pilot?"

"Yes. She's as good as me."

Talon raised an eyebrow. Coming from a pilot, that was a huge admission.

"Good I need some help. From both of you. We captured a Cylon Raider during our first battle with them. We've nicknamed him Scar, after a gash on his face. We call him 'he' because we want him to identify with us. All Cylon Raiders have a telencephalic inhibitor. It keeps the Raiders from getting too smart. The Cylons don't want their own rebellion on their hands. Anyway, he's still getting used to this new intelligence, and is very susceptible to manipulation. We're trying to use him against the Cylons. Unlike the Cylon Raiders we're producing, he has a actual brain, so they can't tell him apart from all the other Raiders. We've learned how to shut him down and turn him on, so we can make him think that months have gone by even if its just days. Captain Narcasa, you probably haven't been told this, but when the humanoid Cylons die they have their consciousnesses will be downloaded into a new body. The same goes for the Cylon Raiders. We've accessed his memories from his deaths. He has been killed 47 times. 36 of those times were by the same pilot. He is considered one of the more capable Raiders, so its not much of a surprise that it takes a good pilot to shoot him down. We took the visual impute from right before he died the 12th time. He was killed in a head to head pass."

She pushed another button, and the image of a Viper appeared. "If you zoom in on the cockpit, you find this." The image zoomed in on the Viper until it was right bellow the cockpit. There were three words printed on the side of the Viper. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace.

"This was right before the most painful memory that he had stored, the one that filled him with the most hate. Scar took a bullet hit right in the cockpit, and crashed on a moon, but not before taking this Starbuck down too. Apparently, she used him to escape the planet. Before he downloaded he had felt the pain of getting sliced up inside. And this is where you two come in. Captain Narcasa." she said.

Sophie rose. "Sir."

"We hooked up a Viper simulator to our computer systems. I want you to pretend you're this Starbuck. Major, You'll be in a simulation control TIE. You can't get hurt, you're invisible, and you can do what you want to another ship. I want you to be in there to back her up. She can't die in this simulation. The Raider will be fully hooked up, so for him it will feel like actual combat. I want to make Scar angry at the Cylons. The simulators are ready now. Lets go."

--

**Everything with Lee will be explained. And I also want to make it clear that htis is not somthing that takes place before 33. See you next time.**

**This button really likes to be clicked on. Try it!**


	14. Sim Battle

**This was a chapter that was just meant to cover one plot point, and alos as a fill in to help me connect my bigger chapters together. Nothing on Lee, sorry. And the _Galactica_ is on it's way.**

**Disclaimer: I think I owned Raider 18503, but I lost him as soon as I called him Scar. Oh well. Don't really own many of them.  
**

**Spoilers: Not much.  
**

--

**Chapter 14- Sim Battle  
**

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

Talon led Sophie down the halls of the _Gorgon_, chatting with her. He immediately liked her. She we a pilot, like him, and they swapped stories about particularly interesting dogfights. He was curious about one thing, though.

"How'd you get your call sign anyway? 'Deadbolt'?"

Sophie grinned. "When I got to my first post, the Battlestar _Columbia_, I decided to frak a Raptor ECO. Problem is, I forgot to lock the door. So the CAG walks by, hears some noises from inside the room, opens it, and sees us there. He made a comment loud enough for everyone to about me forgetting to dead-bolt the door, and it just kinda stuck."

--

They finally got to the simulators. There was one with the shape of the cockpit of a viper, and the other was a standard TIE ball cockpit. When Sophie climbed in she found that her designation had been changed from Blue 3 to Red Lead. Not all that surprising, considering that she was the new CAG, unless Apollo stepped in. She slipped her helmet over her head and powered it on.

"Red Lead, all systems functional. Ready to go."

She heard a voice in her helmet, some unknown operator aboard the _Gorgon_, no doubt. "Red Lead, we copy all systems functional. Your target is Raider 18503, name 'Scar'. For the purpose of this exercise he will be designated in you Heads-Up Display. Do not kill Scar or let yourself be killed under any circumstances. Destroy as many other Raiders as possible. Capital ships will be as following:

Battlestar _Galactica_, undamaged, Two Basestars, undamaged. Good hunting."

_Galactica_? Well, if Kara was alive, that was the place she would be. It was a bit weird for her to be in a Viper Mk. II. They were a bit more sluggish then she liked, but other than that it was fine. She knew that if she could see the nose of her fighter it would have Starbuck's name on it. The screens that represented the view outside the cockpit flickered to life, and Sophie could immediately see that the techs in the Gorgon had made some adjustments to the sim. Her Viper was in the launch tube, and while to graphics on the _Pegasus_'s sims were good, these were photo realistic. Suddenly she heard a voice come over the "wireless", which was really just a speaker in her helmet.

"Action stations, actions stations, set condition one through the ship. Multiple Cylon Basestars incoming. All alert Vipers, launch."

She waited for the simulator to automatically launch her. When it didn't she looked over to the side. In the launch control room there was a technician, waiting for her signal. Feeling foolish for interacting with a virtual person, she waved with her hand. She could see the little person push the launch button, and suddenly she was pressed against her seat as her Viper was catapulted out of the launch tube. This also surprised her. The simulators in the _Pegasus_ could simulate most movements and almost all maneuvers, they had never quite been able to give the full feeling of acceleration. Also, she felt the thrum of the engines behind her, vibrating the seat. That was also new. If she didn't know better, she would say that she was in the real thing. As she cleared the tube she immediately spotted the two Basestars. Already she could see the trail of the missiles headed for the Battlestar, and the return salvos. Pushing that out of her head, she turned her ship towards the cloud of Raiders on her DRADIS and kicked in the afterburners. This was going to be fun.

--

**TIE Control, Simulator**

Talon had never been in a control craft before, but had heard about them. Usually they were used by instructors in sim battles, to make sure that everything was the way they wanted it to be. Of course, it only existed in the sims. He had just donned his distinctive helmet and life support system when he appeared in the middle of the virtual battlezone. He found that he could call up any target he wanted to see. Once he had done that, he could fire a variety of weapons. They included everything from destroying a ship to clouding its sensor, to moving it. He experimented a little bit on some Raiders, yanking them around just for the fun of it. He was still a little bit clumsy with his mechanical right arm, but he was getting better. He headed for Deadbolt and Scar. They had not engaged each other yet, and the text scrolling across his control panel indicated that she was ordered not to engage yet.

--

**Cylon Raider 18503, Simulator**

18503, or Scar, as he started calling himself, was enjoying his new found intelligence. He had been aloud to fly around in the simulators a lot. Most of the time he was just there, not shooting at anything. They would let him fly around different solar systems, looking at beautiful planets and suns. This time though, he was placed in a Basestar. Scar felt the electronic order to launch, and his did, dropping free from his slot on the Basestar. He was pleased to see that he had a full load of ammunition. He calculated his optimal speed for this engagement and vectored off to engage the cloud of Colonial fighter craft.

--

**Read Lead, Viper Mk. II, Simulator**

Sophie was diving in and out of the clouds of fighters, destroying them. She really was out-numbered, and in a Mk. II she wasn't sure how long she would last. But she didn't really have a choice. She couldn't outrun the Raiders, and even if she wanted to her orders were clear. Kill as many Raiders as possible, just don't kill Scar. Well, the Imperials better have a trick up their sleeve, or else her virtual Viper would be blown to pieces.

--

**TIE Control, Simulator **

Talon watched the swarm of Raiders around Sophie. Well, he could help her. He zoomed forward and fired on the Raiders. He blinded half of their sensors, then pushed the other half to the left. The result was the blind fighters crashed into the other fighters. The resulting collisions provided Sophie enough time to loop around. She let loose with two missiles, destroying her targets, then banked towards Scar. He looked down at his screen. Her orders had changed. Engage Scar but do not kill. Further instructions soon. Talon quickly blinded the rest of the Raiders and headed over to the fight, ready to offer assistance if necessary.

--

**Cylon Raider 18503, Simulator**

Scar was furious. He had been watching one pilot blow up his fellow Raiders one by one. He was just about to get on the Viper's tail when he noticed the name on the side of the fuselage. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. She was the one. Redoubling his efforts, and forgetting that he was just in a simulator, he opened his missile bay. He had one nuclear missile in it, and while he not authorized to do it, he would use it to kill the viper pilot. Even if the blast would kill him.

--

**Simulator Control Room**

Daala smiled. So far her plan was working perfectly. She had been watching some of the data readouts from Scar, and they showed that he had completely immersed himself in the simulator. Using the computer terminal that monitored the simulation, she started the program that hopefully would be the first step in turning Scar against the Cylons.

--

**Read Lead, Viper Mk. II, Simulator**

Scar was good. One-on-one, she should have no problem beating a Raider, even in a Mk. II. But she found that she was having trouble dealing with Scar. She just couldn't line up- on him, and he had a nasty habit of staying on her tail. She was rolling and performing evasive maneuvers constantly, and so far the deadly blue streams of KEWs flashed by on either side of her. But for some reason they stopped. That was curious. Was he out of ammo already? Then her console blared a warning at her. _Frak_. A radiological alarm. That toaster was about to blow them both up. She would have been real scared if this was the real thing. But then she received a new mission update. Head to the nearest Basestar and approach. Do not fire. Expect turbulence soon. _Turbulence?_ She thought. Then she shrugged. This could be interesting.

--

**Cylon Raider 18503, Simulator**

Scar was preparing to destroy that pilot once and for all when the nearest Basestar told him to escort hr ship in. After killing dozens of his fellow Raiders, they wanted her alive? In the past, he would have complied with orders. But now he could see how the humanoid Cylons cared nothing for the Raiders. Just dumb beasts. 18503 made his decision. His activated the direct targeting DRADIS sensor, locked on to the Viper, and launched the nuclear missile. It only traveled 27 feet before it detonate, the virtual explosion consuming Scar and Sophie. It wasn't until afterwards that Scar realized that he had not died and that it had just been a simulation. He didn't finally get that pilot. Someday soon, he would, if it was the last thing he did.

--

**Read Lead, Viper Mk. II, Simulator**

They weren't kidding when they said brace for turbulence. The explosion threw Sophie around in the cockpit, safety restraints just able to keep her from hitting her head on the side of the canopy. And then it suddenly stopped, the simulator over. The canopy rose, allowing her to get out. As she did, she realized that she and Scar both shared something in common. They hated Kara Thrace. Scar hated her for killing Raiders, and Sophie hated her for a couple hundred reasons. Pushing that to the back of her mind, she pulled the helmet off her head and went to meet Talon. She was pretty sure that together they could convince Daala to build that ship.

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62  
**

She had no trouble wriggling her lithe body through the confines of the ship. She had managed to evade all patrols. It was easy. No one looked here. After all, she was so deep in the ship that only mechanics would come around here, and not regularly. Her brown eyes surveyed the scene around her, and she crawled into the closet. It was not on the ship's map, just like several other spots on the ship. She was going to go to another one, but she had seen Marines messing around with it. Obviously the G-4 she had stored in it had been found. The closet she was in was small, and had just enough room for her to move around a little. It was stocked with G-4, a few weapons, water, protein bar, various colonial uniforms, and counterfeit dog tags. Perfect. No she just had to wait for a long time. She had a device that was not only a tracking devise, but also would inform her when it was time to move. She smiled. It was good to be back on a Battlestar.

--

**Who is the mystery person on the _Pegasus_? And why is Lee here? Guess you'll just have to read later chapters to find out. It's very nice to review. Please do.**


	15. Contact

**This is to adress what That Guy said, in case he reads this, or to anyone who shares his opinion:**

**I could go into the fact that the _Gorgon_ has so much damage from barely escaping a supernova and the accidental messed up hyperspace jump that it is practically falling apart, and only running on one engine, but I won't. I also won't get into the fact that missiles _can_ hurt a Destroyer (if a volley of proton torps can hurt it, dozens of nukes should do more that just "scratch the paint").**

**But the whole point of this story is to be a _fun_ story. You're right, if the Destroyer could do what you said there would be no point. That's why in this story it doesn't do that. I bend the rules to make it a story that works. Once again, the point of writing or reading a story is for fun and enjoyment.**

--

**Now that's over, I hope this chapter is enjoyable. I tried my best to explain the part at the end, but I don't know if I made it clear enough.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own much here.  
**

**Spoilers: Flight of the Phoenix**

--

**Chapter 15- Contact**

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

Talon and Sophie walked to the engineering room. When they got there she stopped, shocked. A creature that resembled giant insect walked right up to them and started buzzing. It had a green carapace and black eyes, with two antennae poking out of the top of it's head. He was taller that Sophie, at about six feet. Sophie was confused. What was this?

The insect bowed and made it's strange buzzing noises.

Talon smiled. "Zrizi, translator."

The insect buzzed a few times and fumbled with a mechanical device with his odd shaped hands, or more accurately, graspers.

Sophie looked at Talon. "What is it?"

The alien spoke in a incompressible buzzing voice that was translated into a harsh mechanical voice.

"Greetings. My name in Zrizi. Who are you, human female?"

"Uh," Sophie stuttered, confused at why a bug was talking to her. "Lieutenant, sorry, Captain Narcasa."

"I am Zrizi." He said. "Zrizi is a Verpine. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. May I fix something?"

Sophie thought that she could detect a hopeful tone in his mechanical voice. Unsure of what to say, she was grateful when Talon stepped in. "We have something we need help designing."

Zrizi looked even more exited, his antennae twitching and his short-snouted toothless mouth opening and closing. "Zrizi will get model maker."

With that, the Verpine rushed off to his tool kit.

Sophie looked at Talon. "What in the gods' names is he?"

"He's a Verpine, a alien. I should have realized you'd never seen an alien before. He usually refers to himself in the third person, but we've been trying to get him to use 'I'. Verpines have a hive mind, but since he's away from others he acts a little weird. He loves to fix and tinker with things. Five years ago, when one of my TIE's engines were only at 96 efficiency he worked on it. Not only did he fix it, but he also boosted up to 104."

Across the hanger, Zrizi called out, "104.63."

Talon smiled sheepishly. "He also has great hearing and memory."

Zrizi returned with a large box. He sat it down on a table on opened it. It was a large holo projector hooked up to a powerful computer. "Major Devruin, the work on the MCPS is going to take a couple of-"

Talon cut him off. "Stop! Zrizi!" The Meta Crystal Phase Shifter was supposed to be a secret from all Colonial personnel, including admiral Cain.

Sophie looked at him. "MCPS? What's that?"

Talon hesitated, and in his mind quickly made up an excuse. Unfortunately, he had never been good at making up excuses on the fly. "It's the, uhh, Mega Caf Personal Sifter." He resited the urge to wince, that was horrible.

Sophie blinked. "What?"

"It takes the beans for Caf and sifts them. You know. For better Caf."

Sophie knew she should be suspicious, but something had pique her curiosity. "Caf? As in coffee?"

Talon had never heard that word, but it was probably the same, and he needed a distraction. "Yeah."

Before they could talk anymore Zrizi started buzzing until they paid attention to him.

"Tell Zrizi what you want to make."

--

After about four hours they had a plan. Zrizi had pulled up a full schematic of the _Mirage_, turned it into a 3-D design, and added the large gun. He figured out how to convert two TIE shields into recoil dampers, took a couple pieces of scrap metal and TIE Starfighter cockpits into turrets, added engines from Colonial Heavy 535, and added even more, including what would be "optimal" to put in it's hanger bays. Verpines wanted to make any design as the best it could be, and he tried his best. With thanks, they took the design from Zrizi and brought it up to Daala.

--

Daala was still skeptical about the idea, but she gave the two pilots the benefit of the doubt.

"So. What do we have?"

Talon flicked on the projector. "The _Mirage_ is 400 meters long. It will have a main battery of one of the _Pegasus_'s guns. We can produce some special penetrating high explosive shells using either our fabricator, _Pegasus_'s fabricator, or maybe the one on the Basestar. That will give it about a third of the _Pegasus_'s forward firepower. A auto loading system can make it fire 35 rounds per minute. It has three laser turrets, each one is a TIE Starfighter cockpit. Those can be used against fighters or missiles. Eight CIWIS guns off the _Pegasus_ can provide even better protection against missiles. Six proton torpedo launchers can either damage capital ships, shoot down fighters, or provide more protection against missiles. There will be one ship-to-ship missile launcher, for either conventional missiles or nuclear warheads. The hanger can hold two Raptors, eight Vipers, one TIE Interceptor and two TIE Bombers. That plus the engines on the 535 for speed."

Daala thought about that for a second. If it worked, it could be very valuable.

"And what would be loose?"

"We'd obviously have to take six torp launchers of our ship, one missile launcher, one nuclear warhead and eight CIWIS from the _Pegasus_. Besides that, and small craft that would be assigned to it, we would have to take apart two shielded TIE Fighters. The shields would be for the gun, and the cockpit would be a turret. We can salvage the other turret from the wreckage of a damaged TIE from the battle. The only other things would be 535's engines, which were not going to be used anyway. The rest we can just get from scrap metal."

Daala didn't talk for a moment. Then she spoke up. "Fine. Get the materials from our ship on my authorization. Then go to the _Pegasus_ and grab them. I'll transit my authorization to Cain. I want that ship ready in twelve hours. Do it."

--

Talon and Sophie worked non-stop for the next eight hours. The commandeered part of the _Gorgon_'s repair crew, along with Zrizi and some more engineers. They used the _Lambda_ shuttles to tractor the main gun over to the Mirage, where they welded it on. The _Mirage_ had never held many people; it was hauling cargo from Picon to Caprica when the Cylons attacked, and the only people on board were the crew. _Colonial Heavy 535_ had only had a few passengers, and they were being transferred to the moderately loaded _Olympic Carrier_. They transferred fighters from one ship to another, disassembled fighters, converted shields, took weapons and welded non-stop. They took some spare parts for Pegasus's CIC and installed them to make the ship more combat capable, and added two engines from Heavy 535. When it was finished they were exhausted. But it was done. They boarded a shuttle which dropped Sophie back at the _Pegasus_, while Talon was carried back to the _Gorgon_. As soon as both of them hit their racks they were instantly asleep.

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

After a couple of days the repairs were almost finished. Sophie had taken on a class of pilots from the Pegasus's civilian fleet. Apollo was on flight status, but was the DCAG, not the CAG. He was helping her teach the nuggets. Some of them had callsigns, some didn't. They were taking a crash course in flying, because no one knew how much time they had until the Cylons came again. After her second day of teaching she flopped back in her bunk, tired. She had the whole room to herself. The lack of pilots meant that all of them shared one bunkroom, while the two senior pilots, herself and Apollo, bunked in the other one. She didn't know here Apollo was. To say that she had a bad day was a understatement. In addition to being mostly healed, the Basestar, which had been dubbed the _Archer_, had produced more fighters that they had expected. It now had a compliment of thirteen Raiders. Several fellow crew mates had been transferred to it, Kendra Shaw among them.

Apparently having the Raiders was a problem. The Raiders had been flying CAP when one of the nuggets got spooked. He had spent hours in the sims fighting simulated Raiders, and despite the warnings that they would be there, the friendly IFF signals emanating from the Raider and the blinking friendly icon on his HUD, he panicked and fired on the Raider, destroying it. The Raider's wing pair automatically fired back at the Viper, the sustained burst blowing his ship into little pieces. Her most promising student (although that really wasn't saying much) had been flying right behind the idiot's Viper, and had caught some shrapnel into the engines, blowing them with enough force to shred the entire Viper. Now they were down three ships, one pilot, and one idiot pilot. Frustrated, she pulled the covers over her head and went to sleep that way, in a little cocoon.

**Red Lead, Viper Mk.VII**

The day after the incident with the Raider, Sophie was flying CAP three other pilots. She had made sure that the paths they were patrolling were well away from the Raiders. She also had a remote control system that could allow her to order the Raiders around. went from the _Pegasus_ to the _Mirage_ to the _Olympic Carrier_. She was just turning in a long arc that would bring her to the _Archer_ when her DRADIS went off like crazy. There were too many contacts for her to identify. She opened a line to the _Pegasus_.

"_Pegasus_, Deadbolt. Showtime, multiple bogeys, can not identify. Over."

After a moment of silence she received a reply. Cain's voice came over the wireless. "Roger that, we have over five-zero, repeat, five-zero large ships. They appear to be launching fighters. Launch all fighters. All available units, engage.

Sophie bit back a curse. All units meant the ridiculously inexperienced nuggets. But it wouldn't really matter, anyway. The _Pegasus_ and the _Gorgon_ were immobile while repairs were being completed, and could not jump. That meant that the only ships that could escape was the civilian fleet, the Archer, and the Mirage. The two main ships were helpless. Against a smaller enemy force they might have a chance, but 50 ships…They were dead. But if they could hold the Raiders off for long enough the ships might be able to evacuate or something. She did the math in her head. _Lets see, each Basestar holds 792 Raiders. 792 times about 50 is 39,600. 39,600 Raiders, not counting who knows how many Heavy Raiders_. Nope. No way out of this one. It was weird, because the ships had only scrambled about sixty fighters so far. Against their twenty three, plus 12 Raiders and what ever the _Gorgon_ could launch. Oh well. If nothing else, this would be interesting. She waved to the launch operator and was pushed back into her seat as she shot out of the tube.

"All fighters, form up on me." She said. "Red and Blue squadrons, only fire on the enemy Raiders. Raiders one through twelve, form up on me. Let's kick some Cylon ass."

--

**Battlestar _Galactica_, BSG 75**

"So. Lee. Would you mind to tell me why the frak I'm sitting in this launch tube? I was in it three days ago. I'm not due to be in a alert Viper for a week."

From another tube Lee "Apollo" Adama could hear Kara Thrace. He could imagine the expression on her face and smiled. "Well, since it was the CAG's turn to sit in this launch tube while the fleet jumps, he thought he might as well bring the all-mighty Starbuck to suffer with him."

Kara "Starbuck" Thrace smiled into her mask. While she couldn't see Lee because he was in a different launch tube, she did enjoy teasing him. "How 'bout you tell the CAG that next time I see him I'm gonna kick his ass."

"Come on, Starbuck. Who knows, there might even be some Cylons out there. If you're a good girl, I'll leave one for you."

Kara felt her blood boil. No one called her a 'good girl', and Lee certainly was completely inferior to her in all matters, especially the ones that related to flying. "Frak you, Apollo."

"No thanks, Starbuck. You're not my type."

From the moment he said that, he knew it was untrue. He had accidentally told her what he felt when she came back, on the Astral Queen.

_"I just want you to know, Kara, that I'm your friend. I love you. If there's anything you wanna talk about, anything you wanna get off your chest, then I'm here for you. Anyway... whenever you wanna talk, just let me know."_

_"What was that middle part again?"_

_He stopped and looked at her. "What do you mean?"  
She had smiled "Did you say you love me?"  
He laughed nervously "Well, um…:  
"Lee Adama loves me."  
"No, all I meant was-"he stammered.  
" No. Seriously. Very sweet. You love me. You can't take it back. There's no take-backs."_

He shook his head. He was pretty sure that she didn't feel the same way.

--

Kara rolled her eyes in frustration. For someone who could be a tactical genius, Lee was so dense. At Colonial Day, when she was in the dress, he had obviously been startled. He mumbled something about her knee. Yep, he had liked how she looked. She had traded one of her bottles of Ambrosia to get that dress, and went to all the trouble to find a place they could go to after the dance. But he had left, and after a few drinks, okay maybe a lot of drinks, she half thought she was with Lee when she was with Baltar. And then she was sure he wanted her, when he was acting like a jealous boyfriend when he found out. And the kiss on the Astral Queen had sealed that subject for good. She thought she was hung up on Sam, but maybe she was just trying to convince herself that. After all, she was a world-class frak up. She closed her eyes and looked at the time readout until jump that was displayed on her computer. Ten seconds to go.

--

Commander William Adama stood in the middle of the _Galactica_'s CIC. He was completely distracted by the new he had just received. Laura Roslin, President of what was left of the 12 Colonies, had only a month to live. Optimistically. Her cancer was getting much, much worse. Of course, with the Cylons hunting them, they all probably didn't have long to live. The recent scare with the Cylon computer virus had made him realized that they all probably didn't have long to live. He was so distracted that he didn't notice his XO and long time friend, Saul Tigh, talking to him.

"Bill? Bill!"

Bill looked up at him. "What?"

"I've been trying to get your attention for the last five minutes. We're waiting for your command to jump."

"Right. Jump on my mark. Three, two, one, mark."

As the familiar sensation of everything stretching and then compressing happed, he wondered, _Maybe they'll get us this time._

--

As soon as they reverted to space the DRADIS sensor started going off.

"DRADIS contact!" Gaeta called out. "Seven large vessels, unknown, presumably Cylon Basestars. They're launching Raiders!"

Adama started barking out orders. "Launch all fighters. Mr. Gaeta, plot a emergency jump for the entire fleet. Guns, find a firing solution.

--

**_Galactica'_****s Apollo, Viper Mk.VII**

Apollo was still sitting in the tube when he received a transmission. "Apollo, _Galactica_. We have unknown DRADIS contacts, assumed to be Cylon Basestars. Get in close and get a positive ID."

Apollo gave the signal to launch and rocketed out of the tube. All along the sides of the Battlestar, fighters shot out of their tubes. Apollo was in the _Galactica_'s only Mk.VII Viper. He opened a channel to talk to the pilots.

"Alright, showtime. All Vipers, form up on me, we're getting a ID on some of those ships. Let's go."

He went to full thrust and zoomed along to intercept. When he got close enough he could get a positive DRADIS ID on them, had to take a second look at his DRADIS screen to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. He thumbed to comm on. "_Galactica_, Apollo, I need a private line with _Galactica_ Actual."

He heard a click and then his dad came on the line. "Apollo, this is Actual. What is it?"

"Something's wrong here. Our profile matches both Cylon Raiders and Vipers. And also we're getting colonial recognition signals from both the Vipers and the Raiders. One sec, you're not going to believe this. I have a visual of Mk.VIIs flying in formation with Raiders. What are your orders?"

Bill thought that over for a second. It could be a Cylon trick, but the recognition codes…

"Hold fire and query them."

--

**Drake Lead, TIE Interceptor**

Talon had scrambled with all the other fighters. The _Archer_ and the _Mirage_ were turning around to engage the ships. His sensor was more advanced than the Vipers, so he was able to see that the 50+ ships were, much to his relief, civilian vessels and one Battlestar. He opened a line to the _Gorgon_. "_Gorgon_, this Drake Lead. I need to speak with Admiral Daala."

After a second Daala answered him. "Drake Lead, go ahead."

"The 50 ships are not Cylons, I repeat, not Cylons. They're _Galactica_ and her civillian fleet."

There was a moment of silence. "Roger that. Comm the _Archer_, _Mirage_, and _Pegasus_. Inform them of the situation and have one of their people contact the _Galactica_.

--

**_Galactica_****'s Apollo, Viper Mk.VII**

The line of Vipers and Raiders in front of him and cut power and were coming to a stop. He took the time to scan the other ships in the area. What he saw confused him. A Cylon Basestar, just sitting there, not firing. Some civilian ships, and the Battlestar _Pegasus_. Wow. Someone else had survived. This changed everything. If the commander of the _Pegasus _was still Admiral Cain, they were in trouble. His dad had told him what little he knew about Cain, and it wasn't good. Saying that she ruled her ship with a iron fist was a understatement.

A unidentified contact, a huge white dagger just sitting there in space. It wasn't exactly white, it was blackened from charring and deformed in some parts. He looked closer at the display for one of the civilian ships. Oh frak. It was the _Olympic Carrier._

He thumbed the comm switch. "I need a line with _Galactica_ Actual right now!"

His father's voice answered him. "Go ahead."

"We've got a big problem. We have ships that aren't ours and aren't Cylon, a Basestar that is just sitting there, and the Battlestar _Pegasus_."

"What! The _Pegasus_?"

"That's not all. I took a look at one of the civilian ships. It's the _Olympic Carrier_."

His father was quick in replying. "This could be a Cylon trick. Let's make sure it isn't."

Apollo switched his wireless to broadcast in the clear. "This is Apollo from the Battlestar _Galactica_. Who are you?"

He heard a female voice come across the wireless. "Apollo?! What the frak? You're flying my win-"

Before she could finish her sentence Starbuck butted in. "Deadbolt? Is that you?"

The female pilot spoke again, her voice low. "Starbuck."

Suddenly Kara turned her ship around 180° and sped away at top speed. Not longer after that happened, Deadbolt's Viper flashed by him in pursuit of Starbuck.

Lee groaned. "Gods damn it, Kara," he muttered. "Why do you always have to do this. Kat, you have lead. Report back to _Galactica_, keep them informed of the situation. Apollo out." He then followed Starbuck and Deadbolt. It took him a second to realize that he had never heard of a pilot called Deadbolt. Who was she? And how did Kara know her?

He was so focused on tying to catch up with Deadbolt and Starbuck that he didn't notice another Viper pull up behind, him, into his kill slot. Lee Adama, with a scar running across his face, flipped off the safety. Maybe if he could kill the other Lee no one would notice. He lined up on the Viper pilot from _Galactica_ and pulled the trigger.

--

**This story could use a bit of beta-ing, so if anyone is interested in helping just let me know. Thanks!**

**I hope that the thing with two Apollos wasn't too consfusing. Please review, especialy if you didn't understand what was going on. Tips are awlays helpful, and reviews really help motivate me.**

**The _Galactica_'s finally here!**


	16. Meetings

**Much thanks to GalacticaCAG for help with this chapter. I'm still not sure how it turned out.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.  
**

**Spoilers: Not much.  
**

--

**Chapter 16- Meetings**

--

**Drake Lead, TIE Interceptor**

Talon looked on, utterly confused as the chase took place. Deadbolt was chasing Starbuck for some unknown reason. But even more confusing was the fact that there was four fighters involved in the chase. As he toggled the identification in his HUD he felt his gut sink. There were two Apollos involved. One from _Galactica_, one from _Pegasus_. So he was a Cylon. They had to be stopped, but also should probably be taken alive. He used his thumb to switch from lasers to his retrofitted ion cannons. But he wasn't able to fire before the _Pegasus's_ Apollo opened fire on the Viper in front of him.

_**Galactica**_** Red Lead, Viper Mk. VII**

Apollo was trying unsuccessfully to raise Starbuck on the wireless when gold streams of bullets flew around his cockpit. Reacting immediately, he blew every air maneuvering jet on his right side, sliding sending him out of the path of the bullets. At the same time he pulled back on the stick and cut his engines. He was now going at the same speed, but was able to swing around to see what was shooting at him. It was a Viper Mk. VII. Something about the pilot looked familiar. He looked closer and froze. He could just make out a face: his face. The only difference was a scar traveling across his doppelgänger's face. He was so stunned that he wasn't able to do anything, and that should have killed him. But before the other Apollo could fire again a pair of blue bolts slammed into the Viper, cutting it's power and leaving it drifting in space. Not long afterwards a bolt slammed into his fighter, one of the duel shots that Talon had fired. The second bolt missed by only a few feet, sailing right over Lee's cockpit and standing every hair on his body on end, but sparing a few of his systems. Most of his systems were out, but his short range comm was still working, and he was alive. Now he just had to figure out what the hell was going on.

--

_**Galactica **_**Red Two, Viper Mk. II**

Kara wasn't sure why she was running. She didn't think Deadbolt would shoot her, although she had plenty of reasons to. She was going to keep running until she heard some of the comm chatter. She turned the volume to full and caught snippets of conversations.

"Shots fired… Apollo…drifting…What the frak?!...Hold fire, repeat, hold fire…Apollo's ship isn't moving…Who shot him?…What kind of fighter is that?"

Shit. Lee was in trouble. Not caring if Deadbolt took a shot at her, she turned her Viper around and went to get Lee.

--

_**Pegasus **_**Red Lead, Viper Mk. VII**

Sophie wasn't quite sure why she was chasing Kara. It was tempting to shoot her, but she knew she wouldn't. Suddenly Starbuck headed back to where they had came from. Sophie wasn't sure why at first, but then she looked at her sensors. The dots that represented both Apollo's weren't moving. She entered a slow turn to the right that would bring her back to all the Vipers. She was the CAG, and she couldn't abandon her pilots.

--

_**Galactica**_** Red Two, Viper Mk. II**

When Kara got to the scene she saw two Vipers hanging dead in space. She went to the first Viper she saw. She pulled up right next to it and looked in. Lee was sitting there, but with a scar on his face. "What the frak is going on?" she said out loud. That couldn't be him. She went to the other Viper. For some reason she couldn't comprehend, Lee was in the other Viper too. She thumbed the comm switch on.

"Lee do you read?"

She could make out a faint reply. "Comm's mostly out. Come closer.

He didn't answer, but she saw him look at her. She inverted her Viper and used her maneuvering jets to lower her ship unit their canopies were less then three feet from each other. "Are you okay?" Kara asked.

"No. I…I think I'm a Cylon."

Kara blinked. _A Cylon? Lee couldn't be a Cylon. No way. He just couldn't be. I mean, we didn't suspect Boomer, but Lee just couldn't be._

"You're crazy Lee. You've been shooting Cylons since day one."

"Boomer blew up a Basestar. You should probably get away from my ship."

Displaying her stubborn streak, she kept her Viper in that exact same position while she opened a line to her Battlestar. "_Galactica_, Starbuck. We've got a problem."

--

_**Colonial One**_

It took almost three hours to get both Battlestars to stand down to Condition 2. It took about four hours to arrange a meeting on a neutral ship, _Colonial One_, and almost another hour to get everybody there.

Two ships docked with _Colonial One_: A Raptor from the _Pegasus_, and a Raptor from the _Galactica_. There was a delay on the Star Destroyer, so Daala would be arriving a bit late. Laura Roslin was already waiting for them. Commander Adama walked into the main room and ran into Cain. He saluted, and she made him hold it for a few seconds before dropping it. He smiled and offered a hand. "Admiral Cain."

She took his hand and shook it. "Commander Adama. It's good to see you."

"You too."

Laura got out of her chair and forced a smile, noticing that Adama had to hold his salute until Cain dropped hers. She wasn't happy about having someone out rank Bill Adama. "Admiral Cain, you have no idea how good it is to see you. I'm Laura Roslin, President of the 12 Colonies."

Cain knew that he name sounded familiar, but she couldn't place her at first. Then she remembered.

"The Secretary of Education?" she asked, her voice bordering on incredulous.

Bill intervened. "She's the reason we're alive today. Without her leadership, we'd all have been dead by now."

Laura had her politician's mask on her face, a small fake smile on her face. "Admiral, again, it is so good to see you, but we must know. How did you find us?" Cain shrugged. "We didn't. You jumped into this system. We've been here for days, repairing damage. We've suffered heavy damage to our ship. We've been immobile for days. Someone transmitted a signal from our ship that led the Cylons right to us. We're thinking it might have been you son."

Adama bristled at the mention of that topic. He had heard reports from Starbuck and other sources that there were two Lees out there, but he was having trouble believing it. He had known Lee since he was a baby, although the times he had been with his son had been vastly outnumbered by the times he had been away. But if Lee was a Cylon, then would that mean that he was a Cylon? Obviously Cain didn't believe that, or he would be in _Pegasus_'s brig right now.

"My son is not a Cylon." he growled, more to reassure himself than to convince Cain.

She raised an eyebrow. "I'd say your judgment might be a little clouded in this matter. When the Imperials get here, we can continue this discussion."

When he started to speak she cut him off. "That is an order, commander." she said, putting emphasis on his rank. She glanced at Roslin. "I think you should leave, Ms. Roslin." she said, ignoring her formal title. "The commander and I need to have a military discussion. It might be a bit much for a kindergarten teacher."

Laura bit back a particularly nasty comment, keeping that smile on her face. This was getting ridiculous. "Perhaps you'd be interested in talking to Vice President Baltar."

Cain tensed. "Gaius Baltar?"

"Yes. Is there a problem?" Laura said. As soon as this meeting was over she'd get Cain put through Baltar's Cylon Detector tests. If it was positive, she'd chuck Cain out a airlock. Scratch that. She'd find a way to do that regardless of the test results.

"Baltar is the biggest traitor in the history of the human race. He conspired with a Cylon agent to access the CNP network, and from there, he was able to disable almost all of the fleet. The only reason we escaped was that our CNP was offline for repairs when they attacked. We were docked at the Scorpion shipyards. We saw ships being destroyed. At least two Battlestars, and many others. We did a blind jump to get out, right before a nuke was about to hit us. It blinded us from their DRADIS sensors. We escaped, but with heavy casualties. Since then I've lost about half my crew."

"But why would Baltar betray everyone?" Laura asked.

"He was working with a Cylon. Her model was a number Six. He was having a affair with her right before the attacks."

Laura thought that something seemed familiar about what Cain was saying. Then it hit her. After her cancer diagnosis she had fled into the square. She had spotted Baltar and a blond woman together, pressed against a pillar. Now that he thought of it, the "Shelly Godfrey" woman looked the same as her.

She gasped and took a step back. "Oh my gods." She said. "Commander, what did you give Dr. Baltar for his Cylon detector?"

Adama took a second to respond. "A nuclear warhead".

Cain looked at him in disbelief. "You gave a civilian a nuke?"

"We had just discovered that Cylons looked like humans. Unfortunately, his test isn't the most reliable. A sleeper agent passed the test and shot me in the chest twice."

Cain wasn't sure what to make of Adama. She should have been glad to see him, but she wasn't. She shook her head. "We need to arrest Baltar. Send in a team of Marines to arrest him, before he can do any harm."

--

**Hope you enjoyed! Remember, that little button in the corner likes to be clicked, and it helps to have reviews. Thanks for reading!  
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	17. The Good Doctor

**Sorry about the wait.**

**Disclaimer: _Still _Don't own 'em.  
**

**Spoilers: Pegasus  
**

**Chapter 17- The Good Doctor**

--

**Battlestar **_**Galactica**_**, BSG-75**

Gaius Baltar was bored. The president had caught him arguing with his Six; of course, to her it looked like he was just shouting at thin air. She had forced him to take a day off. Now he was pacing in the middle of a sparely furnished room, all by himself. Unless you counted Six.

"She won't let me into my lab, she won't let me do any research. She won't let me get out of this room. She even locked the frakking hatch!"

It was true. After his argument with Six, the President had used a couple of her bodyguards to haul him down to this unused compartment of the Battlestar and locked the door from the outside.

"This is very rude! I'm the Vice President, for the Gods' sakes! I deserve better treatment than this! I have half a mind to file a complaint!"

If Six were a person, she would have closed her eyes and covered her ears. After all, he had been ranting like this for almost half an hour.

"Patience, Gaius. God's plan for you is being put into motion. Offer Him your love and you will be saved."

He started banging his head into a wall. "More rubbish about your God. Great. Is he going to come along and make everything better? Roslin has it in for me, I tell you. She does!"

A small smile graced Six's face. "You should close your eyes, Gaius."

He looked at her like she was crazy. "I should do _what_?"

At that moment the hatch popped open a bit and a flash grenade was thrown in the room, the light blinding him when it exploded. He didn't see the Marine who grabbed him by the left arm and spun him to the ground, before putting a pair of handcuffs on him. As he was dragged away by the Marines, kicking and screaming, Six followed them, unseen by everyone. _Well, Gaius _did_ ask for some excitement_.

--

_**Colonial One**_

Daala's shuttle arrived a few moments after Marines were dispatched to get Dr. Baltar. He listened to her short introduction and summary of the past few months. He supposed that they would probably find out more about this "Empire" she kept talking about. Lt. Gaeta would be ecstatic about pouring over some of the data they would give. He listened while Laura and Daala fenced with words for a while. Daala was completely ignoring both him and Cain. He had a feeling that Daala would deal with him later.

"Admiral, I am a bit confused why you are here." Laura said. "It seems to me that all you want to do is get back to your galaxy.

"That's true," Daala responded, "But we need replacement parts to fix our computer. Your civilization doesn't have advanced enough technology to repair our ship. But this Earth of yours, it could be more advanced. So it looks like we may need your help."

A couple minutes later, in the middle of a conversation, Laura let out a small gasp and sank into her chair. Bill was at her side in a instant.

"Are you alright, Madame President?"

She nodded. "It's just the…"

She trailed off, realizing that both Cain and Daala were unaware of her cancer, and that it was probably best that way. She inwardly cursed herself. A month ago she wouldn't have made a slip up like that. Maybe the cancer was going to her brain already.

Daala's eyes bored into her. "The what, Madame President?"

Bill was pleased to see that Daala had better manners then Cain (at least she addressed Laura by her title), but had a feeling that they should not find out quite yet.

Laura knew they'd find out sooner or later, so what the hell, why not tell them now? Only the Gods knew how long she had to live.

"I have breast cancer. I have less then a month to live."

The statement took Cain by surprise, and it was almost enough to make her regret how she had treated Roslin earlier. Well, not quite almost.

Daala looked curious. "This cancer, it's a disease, right?"

Laura nodded. "Yes, yes it is."

"We have something called Bacta. It is used to heal wounds, but it can cure almost anything. It _might_ be able to cure your cancer."

Laura felt a surge of hope. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have to be the dying leader. Maybe she could survive, have a future…assuming the Cylons didn't kill them all.

Laura cleared her throat. "I would very much appreciate looking in to this Bacta. However, there is a pressing matter at hand: Captain Apollo."

She saw Bill tense, and her heart ached for him. He didn't deserve this. After all they had been through, a Cylon for a son? She remembered right before the attacks, calling him Captain Apollo. It did have a nice ring to it.

"Right." Daala said. "Your son, or what ever he is, should be arriving momentarily. One of our shuttles picked them up."

Right on cue, they heard the hiss of a ship docking with _Colonial One_.

Two Stormtroopers marched out. Then came the Apollos, each with a restraining collar affixed their throats, similar to the one that had been used on Sharon Valerii whenever she was moved across the ship. The Lee he recognized gave him a weak smile. "Hi dad."

The other Apollo just looked confused.

"We picked him up," Daala said, gesturing to the scarred Apollo, "less than a week ago. He appeared with the _Olympic Carrier_, which is being quarantined due to the fact that you say that you've destroyed it. He said that he had been holding Cylon Raiders off of the _Carrier_ before he met up with us, but when we looked at his gun cam videos were doubtful. The Cylons could have hit him at any time, but they didn't. His flying was horrible, and his academy records indicated that he was a ace. We scanned him, but the detector results were inconclusive.. It's like parts of him are human and parts aren't. The one that came from you ship scanned as normal." Something about that seemed familiar to Bill, but he couldn't place it.

Bill looked from one Lee to the next. He spoke the Lee he knew first.

"What do you say?"

The _Galactica_'s CAG shrugged. "I have no idea. I was in my Viper when I saw his face. My ship got disabled shortly after he opened fire on me."

"And you?" he asked to the scarred Apollo.

He gave a sigh of resignation. "I'm a Cylon, and so is he." He said, indicating the Lee that Adama called his son.

Daala shook her head. "No he's not. The one from _Galactica_ scanned completely negative on him. Our scientists think that it could be possible that-"

Bill tuned her out. Piecing someone together...

"Raptor Talon." he muttered.

All heads swung around to face him.

"What?"

Adama sighed. "Operation Raptor Talon. That's the answer."

--

"Operation Raptor Talon took place on the last day of the First Cylon War. I was based of the _Galactica_. We went in with the first _Columbia_. Our objective was a 'ice planet'. Intelligence said it might contain a Cylon Superweapon. They had multiple Raider wings and Basestars waiting for us. The _Columbia_ took three full missile salvos. She went down with all hands. I was in my Viper, and I perused two Raiders into the planet's atmosphere. I took them out, but crashed on the surface. There was a building there, and I went inside it. There were Colonials in there, civilians from a Gemonese freighter. There was some kind of laboratory. They had been taking the people apart, seeing what was inside of them, putting them back together again. They said they had been taken, one by one, they could here the screams…I tried to get them out. But the building started to shake, and they told me to run. When I got outside I saw the structure lifting off. It was actually some kind of Basestar, one we had never seen before. I radioed up to _Galactica_ to tell them to stop the ship. They told me that the Cylons had just signed the Armistice. The ship got away."

He turned to the scarred Apollo. "Is that what you are? Something assembled from pieces of people?"

He shook his head. "I'm a Cylon, and so is he."

Daala sighed. They were getting nowhere. He was obviously sticking to his story. "This is ridiculous. Commander Adama, it has come to my attention that you have a Cylon on your ship."

Adama blinked. How did she know that? He was starting to feel uncomfortable. "I do."

"We need to find out what is going on. I have two prisoners on my ship. I will see what I can find out from them. Cain insists on having in part of this, so she will send an integrator to your ship. Once we get to the bottom of this we can talk about our next move. And I will look into getting Bacta treatments for President Roslin. This meeting is over."

With that, she walked back to her shuttle. The two troopers followed, using the collars to move the Apollos into the shuttle after her.

--

**Battlestar **_**Galactica**_**, BSG-75**

Gaius paced around his cell. They still hadn't told him why he was being held, but he wasn't happy about it. Six kept trying to get him to relax, but nothing would solicit a response from him. Exasperated, she walked over to him and slapped him on the face.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"You need to calm down, Gaius. They're coming for you. Only God can save you."

"Oh yes, He'll save me. Of course."

The Marine on the other side of the cell banged on the cell bars. "Quiet in there!"

"Gaius, they know about us before the attacks. They're going to kill you. You said it earlier, Roslin has it in for you."

This wasn't exactly true, but she figured it was what Baltar would want to hear.

Gaius did not have the reaction Six had expected. Instead of freaking out, he remained calm.

"Do you have a plan?" he whispered.

"Of course. This will hurt."

He looked at her, not comprehending what she meant until she grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him against the wall. Gaius cried out in pain. The Marine immediately unlocked the cell and dashed in to see what had happed. Six walked up behind the Marine and grabbed his neck, twisting it violently to the left. The sound of his neck snapping was as loud as a like a gunshot in the enclosed area of the brig. Even though he had been mostly focusing on his own pain, Gaius had seen Six kill the unfortunate Marine. He felt a surge of elation. Six was real. He wasn't just imagining her. He wasn't crazy!

Six, who always knew what he was thinking, smirked. She wouldn't go as far as to say he wasn't crazy.

Six bent down to retrieve the Marine's gun. She pressed it into Gaius' hand.

"We have to go no, Gaius. The people still believe in you. Once we get off this ship, I know how to help you."

"And how am I supposed to get off this ship? I can't fly!"

"Don't worry. I can."

--

**Imperial Destroyer **_**Gorgon**_

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

Daala had been working in her quarters when Kretas had come in to deliver the bad new about Baltar.

"No joke. They found one Marine dead in the brig, neck snapped. Two more and a mechanic who must have gotten in the way, all shot. One Marine missing. One Raptor pilot, skull bashed in. The Raptor managed to dock with the ship called _Cloud Nine_. No sign of Baltar."

"Did he have help?"

"Undoubtedly. He's never had any military training. The guard was a good foot taller than him, and had over a hundred pounds on him. The gun wounds were all headshots, and the pilot's head was so bashed in that it would take multiple blows from some extremely heavy object. No, he had help, possibly Cylon. The worst part is, he's still technically the Vice President. A call has been put in to all ships, and searches are being initiated, but the people love him. And they're not particularly found of us or Cain, especially after rumors started circulating that she wanted to scrap all the civilian ships for spare parts. Something has to be done, and fast."

Daala though about that for a moment. Then she stood up. Let's go to the bridge. Send a warning to Adama and Cain that we will be powering up weapons for maintenance. Make sure all ion cannon battaries are in the green, and stand by to fire."

--

_**Astral Queen**_

The prison ship was the absolute last place Gaius had ever wanted to be in the fleet (except the wrong side of an airlock). But he did fell a bit more safe with the man in front of him.

"It's very good to see you, Mr. Zarek."

Tom Zarek, freedom fighter or terrorist, gave him one of his most disarming smiles.

"Please, call me Tom."

"Thank you for helping me…Tom."

It was no secret that Zarek and Roslin had a falling out after Kobol. When Adama had come back for her she had immediately forgotten about Zarek. Zarek wanted power, but Roslin did not offer any.

"Don't mention it. I've hear rumors about your escape. If they're true, we could have a problem on our hands. If you killed Adama's men then he'll never stop hunting you."

Gaius shivered as he remembered his escape. Six had handed him the gun. She had held his hands and helped him pull the trigger, killing two Marines from long range. Then they had run into a crew member. He was going for an alarm when six had took the gun from him and shot the crew member in the back of the head. Gaius was doubting his sanity. How could she hold a gun? She had shot anther Marine, but had brought him with them on the Raptor. They shoved him out into space. He was quite impressed when she told him her plan. Make it look like he had a Marine help him, and that that Marine went into hiding afterwards. Six had killed the Raptor pilot, hitting him so hard with the but of the gun that the metal actually bent. She had used the right transponder codes and declared an emergency. Once on _Cloud Nine_ she had got him onto a cargo shuttle re-supplying the _Astral Queen_.

"I didn't kill anyone. A solider who didn't believe any of Roslin's lies helped me escape. When some of Adama's men tried to stop me he had to kill them. I don't know where he is now; he thought it was better for no-one to know."

Zarek nodded. "You can't stay on this ship for long. It'll be one of the first places they look. Don't worry though. You'll come out of this, and if we play this right, you'll be more powerful then you ever could have imagined."

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer **_**Gorgon**_

The bridge was bustling with activity when Daala stepped into it. It had finally been repaired, and looked almost as good as new. She had trained the bridge officers not to snap to attention whenever she entered. She loathed ship commanders who made the crew do that. It was a egotistical display which only wasted time. She walked to the gunnery officer's station.

"Guns, identify the smallest ship in the fleet."

The officer punched a few buttons and a small ship apraed on the screen. "The _Jewel of Gemenon,_ carriers approximately eighty passengers, no military."

"Good. Open a channel to all ships."

"Aye, sir."

Daala picked up a comlink, checked to make sure it was broadcasting on all frequencies, and spoke.

"This is Admiral Daala aboard the Star Destroyer _Gorgon_. Gaius Baltar is hiding somewhere within this fleet. As the people of this fleet have been uncooperative in helping the search, it is time for a different tactic. We have the _Jewel of Gemenon_ targeted right now. We will disable it shortly. The military will have one hour to evacuate it before we destroy it. We will then move on to the next largest vessel and repeat this process. This will continue until Baltar is turned in dead or alive, or there are no more ships remaining. Any ship trying to interfere with our operations will be destroyed with no further warning. Daala out."

She clicked off the comlink and set it down on her station. "XO." She said.

Kretas snapped to attention. "Sir."

"Sound general quarters. Warm up all batteries, there is a chance that one of the Battlestars might try to interfere. Launch a fighter screen."

He saluted. "Yes sir."

"Weapons," she said, "fire all ion cannons at the _Jewel_. Keep up the barrage for thirty seconds. I want that ship so fried that they can't repair it."

"Yes sir."

--

**Battlestar **_**Galactica**_**, BSG-75**

"Helm, up thirty, all ahead full." Colonel Tigh had started barking orders as soon Daala's message had came over the speakers in the CIC. "Mr. Gaeta, sound action stations."

"Belay that order."

Saul looked at his friend in surprise. "Bill, we have to do something. She's going to blow up one of our fraking ships!"

"And what do we do? Get blown out of space? Face it, Saul. We can't take on that thing. Not without Cain. Maybe not even with her. The best thing we can do is prep Raptors to evacuate that ship. But we do have to do something. The _Jewel of Gemenon_ is small enough that we can evacuate it. But this can't go on for ever."

He turned to Dee. "Petty officer, get my a line to _Pegasus_ Actual."

--

**Battlestar **_**Pegasus**_**, BSG-62 **

"Baltar _does_ need to be found, Commander."

Cain could sense Adama's frustration on the other end. "The fleet wants Gaius Baltar. There's rumors that some are pushing for him to be a candidate for the presidency. They're not going to give him up. The longer she does this the more the citizens will resent the military. The fleet will be torn apart."

Cain considered what he was saying. She couldn't care less about the citizens of the fleet, or finding Earth. All she cared about was striking the Cylons when and where ever she could.

"Commander, even if I wanted to stop her, what would you suggest I do? She could take us out long before we could ever get a firing solution, and I'm sure that she could take command of the Basestar whenever she wants. Maybe this will get him out of hiding."

"The number of passengers the _Jewel_ carries can be put on other ships. But what happens when she does this to the next ship? And then to the next?"

Cain sighed. "I'm getting tired of debating this with you. If you want to talk to her, fine. _Pegasus_ out."

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer **_**Gorgon**_

On the hull of the Gorgon, turrets shifted in their mounts and lined up on the _Jewel_. It was such a small target that a few bolts missed on the first wave, but that didn't make a difference. For thirty seconds blue-white energy poured into the _Jewel_. The amount of energy blew out every electronic system on the ship, the explosions killing seven crew members. A few unlucky passengers who considered themselves fortunate enough to have seats with a view got electrocuted by the sheer energy.

Then, as quickly as it had started, it had finished. Raptors from the _Galactica_ had scrambled to evacuate passengers on the _Jewel_; Cain had refused to "waist valuable Tylium" rescuing the civilians. They had gotten all the civilians out within half an hour. Meanwhile, Adama had managed to get a line to Daala.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer **_**Gorgon**_

"Commander Adama, Baltar is a traitor to your race. This is not something I often say, but I do need your help to find Earth. And I will not tolerate a traitor with access to a nuclear weapon somewhere in this fleet. Have you forgotten that he killed six of your men?"

"I have not forgotten that five of my men are dead. And Baltar did not kill them. Our investigator on our ship, Sgt. Hadrian, thinks that another Marine may have helped him escape. It is possible that he is innocent of those murder charges."

"But he is guilty of the genocide of your race."

"And what proof do you have of that? Data you found on a Cylon ship that could have been planted? It's not hard facts. Even if you believe it, even if I believe it, if Cain believes it, if the President believes it, if the people of the fleet don't, than there will be a revolt if he is tried for treason. I know you think that your way will get him out of hiding. It won't. The people will just grow more and more resentful of the military. Without the people you won't find Earth. So far you've killed ten people. They'll forgive you for that. But not if you continue. Let Baltar do what he wants, and in the meantime look for the nuke. It won't be as hard to find."

Daala thought about that for a second. "Hold for one minute."

She muted the comm and motioned for Kretas to come over. Unknown to Adama, Cain had called a few minutes earlier with a suggestion of her own. Cain had suggested targeting _Cloud Nine_ with the _Gorgon_'s turbolasers. Cain had felt that the loss of over two thousand people would immediately get Baltar turned in. She had been considering Cain's proposal, but Adama's actually made sense.

Kretas walked over. "Yes?"

"You heard the conversation?"

He nodded. He had been listening in. "What do you think, Admiral?"

"I'm actually tempted to go with Adama's suggestion. It made more sense then Cain's, or maybe more then mine."

Kretas nodded. "He does have a point. Ad I can't help but wonder. It seems like he would make-"

"A better Admiral than Cain?" Daala finished. Kretas nodded. "She's prone to fits of violence when diplomacy would work better."

"We might just have to do something about that someday."

She nodded, and then picked up the comm and turned it back on. "Commander Adama, we have considered your request and decided that it is the most logical course of action. We will stand down, and dispatch teams to search for the warhead. In the meantime, I'm sending an interrogator to see what my Cylon prisoners can find out about Capitan Adama. As you know, Cain should be sending one of her interrogators over. She felt that your crew had become too emotionally attached to the Cylon prisoner, and she thinks that her man will produce results. I'll contact you when we find out more. Daala out."

**Well, the review button may have been moved, but it still likes to be clicked. Please Review!**


	18. A Trap

**So very sorry about the long wait. My time is very limited, and updates may not be frequent at all. That being said, a big thank you for everyone who has reviewed.  
**

**Disclaimer: Don't own them...I wish I did, considering how dark S4 is...  
**

**Spoilers: Pegasus  
**

**Chapter 18- A Trap**

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

Both Leoben and Natalie were in the same room. There were wearing stun cuffs around their wrists and ankles, but besides that had been treated very nicely, with cots and regular food. Of course, it was some kind of paste that was made for Stormtroopers, and tasted horrible, but the two Cylons ate them without protest and projected themselves somewhere else. Suddenly a door hissed open. A tall man walked in, followed by two Stormtroopers. The troopers motioned with their rifles for the prisoners to go to opposite ends of the rooms. They complied, wondering what was going on. The man took a small remote out of his pocket and pushed a button. The stun cuffs let out small shock, not enough to knock them unconsous, but enough to immobilize them.

"You can still move your head and talk." The man said. His voice was low and gravely. "I'm going to give you one chance. Tell me why the Olympic Carrier is back from the dead and there are two Captain Lee Adamas in a holding cell just like this one aboard this ship."

As he had expected, neither of them said a word. "Very well. Come in."

Two little black balls floated into the room . They were bristling with needles, spikes, and other tourter devices.

"Here's how it works." The integrator said. "These two droids are very skilled in producing pain, and they're programmed to enjoy it. We've been studying the Cylon body, and have found the right spots that will produce unbearable pain. They'll go to work on the Six, and you," he said, gesturing to Leoben, "will get to watch her suffer unless you tell us what we want. If that doesn't work, then will switch. These two have never failed before."

The man smiled. "It's time to see what you're made of."

--

**Raptor 398**

Sophie was not looking forward to this. Cain was still mad at her, which was probably why she was piloting a Raptor right now, even though she was the CAG. Of course, the person on board was very important, even though she had no respect for him what so ever. Lt. Thorne, Cylon interrogator. She had seen his handiwork. There were also two Marines escorting him. But her worry was who she might find on the hanger deck. If Starbuck was lucky, she would be in her rack. She looked around. No Starbuck. She had started to quietly escort Thorne from the Raptor past the hatch that led out of the hanger deck and into the joining hallway when a deep voice boomed out from behind her. "Deadbolt! What are you doing here?!"

Wincing, she turned to find Colonel Saul Tigh. She had met him when he had spent a few years at the flight academy. Not that she particularly minded seeing him, while she didn't like him that much, she was still glad he was alive. "Good to see you too, sir."

"Drop the sir, we're all friends here."

She sniffed the air around him. It defiantly stank of alcohol. Rumor had it that he the XO, Belzen and shared a few drinks of Galactica's chief's home-made brew. He was defiantly drunk. As she started to leave he grabbed her arm.

"There's someone you see. He motioned for someone in the hanger bay to come over. "Hey Starbuck, did you know Deadbolt was alive?"

Time seemed to slow down for Sophie. She shook Tigh's hand off her arm and stepped back into the hanger, almost running into Kara.

--

Kara had been working on her Viper when Sophie had arrived. She had quickly hid under the Viper's belly when Sophie's raptor landed, and thought she had got away from her. She was about to leave the hanger when Tigh called for her. She felt like ignoring him, but then remembered that he had access to the Chef's moonshine. When she rounded the corner to meet him she pretty much ran right into Sophie. She was so startled that she froze, and that gave Sophie the time to punch her in the jaw. It hurt, but it had probably done more harm to Sophie's hand then had had done to Kara. But it did knock her off balance enough that she couldn't block a fist in her stomach. She doubled over, and threw herself backward to avoid a boot to the face. She stood up and lunged at Sophie, head butting her. Something crunched, and a bit of blood trickled down Sophie's face from her nose. Angrier then before, Sophie threw a wild punch, but missed by a good foot.

Colonelt Tigh stood watching them, stupefied. He wasn't sure if what he was seeing was real, or whether his alcohol-fogged mind was just hallucinating two pilots trying to kill each other.

--

Helo had been pulling the same manitence shift as Kara. He was glad that the pilots had finally accepted him, or at least most of them. He was double checking that the gimbal on his raptor when he heard a drunk Tigh shout, "Deadbolt! What are you doing here?!" He stifled a groan. Deadbolt was here. Well, at least if Kara had any sense she would-

"Hey Starbuck, did you know Deadbolt was alive?"

He sprang up from his sitting position on the Raptor and sprinted over to the source of the voices he had heared.

He had known Kara longer thany anyone still alive after the attacks, hell, he had know her longer than almost everyone else before the attacks. He knew that Kara and Sophie had met in the academy and had become good friends. Sophie didn't show quite as much piloting skill as Kara, but she was a little bit more disciplined. She had got transferred to the Pegasus, while Kara had gotten transferred to the Galactica along with Helo. After about (1 year?) later Sophie had been up for promotion to captain. But something had gone wrong. Kara did something (she refused to tell Helo what), and they had a fight. Then there was some kind of investigation, very secret. Helo wouldn't have know about it if it weren't for the fact that Kara talked a lot when she was drunk. It seemed like Kara had tranfred some blame to Sophie, which had gotten her busted down from Lt. S.G., about to be promoted to Captian, to Lt. J.G. Apernalty the last stwaw in their relationship had been when Kara was escorting a Raptor on a flight from Pegasus to Galactica. Kara had been showing off and had acidently clipped the left engine cowling of the Raptor. Sophie had several friends onboard Galactica, and they had thrown a surprise birthday party for her on the Pegasus, and for some reason Kara had been cosen to fly escort. The cowling that got hit sprayed metal parts all over the place, and some got sucked into the Raptor's engines, casuing them to explode. There had been no survivors, and it had been written off as a technical malufinction on Kara's bird. All he knew was that if they encotered each other again ther would be trouble. Sure enough, when he got to the two pilots they were in a full blow battle. It looked like Sophie might have a broken nose, and the way that Kara was holding her arm protectively over her stomach wasb't good. Tigh had passed out on the floor. He ran into the middle of the fight, grabbed each of their soulders with an arm, and pushed them apart. Not suprisgly, he got a black eye for the touble. "Knock it off." He said, but they still were trying to get eachother. Kara suddenly kneed him in the groin. With a yelp of pain he let go of them, and stumbled way. He franticly looked around for help. The chief had been about to start packing for his new assignmed. Cain had decided that he would serve the fleet as a deckhand on the Pegasus. When he saw the fight he came running over to help. Together, he and Helo managed to restrain the two women.

Sophie took one look at Helo and sneered. "I remember you. Helo. You always did take Starbuck's side, no matter what she did."

"That's 'cause it's the right one!" Kara taunted.

"Shut up, Kara." Helo growled.

Kara's eyes narrowed. "Frak you, Helo. Maybe you should hit her. That way you could go to the brig and spend some quality time with Sharon, huh?"

"She's not in the brig, she's in a-"

"Wait, did you say Sharon?" Sophie asked, all intrest in fighting forgotten. "Sharon Valerii? The Cylon?"

Helo resisted the urge to sigh. "Yes."

"You're the one who got her-oh frak."

Helo looked at her quizickly. "What?"

"The man I was escorting was Lt. Thorne, Cylon Interogator. He uses…extreme tactics to get information out of rposners."

"What are you saying?"

"We've had two Cylons on our ship, both female. He rapes them, then gets the crew to join in."

Helo's eyes widened. "Are you saying that-"

The chief grabbed his arm. "We have to go. Now."

With that, they took off down the corridors, racing to the holding cell specaily constrted to hold her, knocking anyone in their way.

Kara looked at Sophie. She was wondering whether she should start hitting her again when she realized that her legs couldn't support her body anymore. She fell to the floor, breathing heavily.

Sophie was about to kick her when she reaized that the last thing Galactica need right now was a pilot with serious injuries. All she knew was this wasn't going to end well.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

Natalie screamed in pain as the integrator droid injected her with yet another drug. It took one of its needles and plunged it into the spot where her skull connected to her spine. Most of the pain didn't originate from a phisicle source; rather she was imagining it. Leoben couldn't take it anymore. She had supported him when no one else would, when his brother Leobens had outcased him for his beilf that while Kara Thrace had a special destiny, there was someone else that had a even more important destiny. He didn't know who, but he knew that he or she was out here. Natalie had supported him when no one else had, and risked losing her status with the rest of the Sixes to help him. As he thugh about it, he realized that maybe it was possible for one Cylon to love another Cylon

"Stop." He said. The interrogator turned to him.

"What?"

"I'll tell you. I'll tell you. Just stop it."

The man nodded. "Very well. He pressed a button on a remote he was holding and the droid removed the needle and injected another shot from another needle it had (Leoben had lost track of how many devices it had a long time ago), this time a pain killer.

"Tell me what I want to know or this starts again."

Leoben took a deep breath. "When we found out that the _Galactica _had escaped destruction, we began to formulate a plan to do whatever we could to disrupt it's activities. Captain Lee Adama was know to have taken a large role in the survival of the Battlestar and its fleet, so we came up with a plan. Some of the Simon models cloned parts of his body from DNA samples. We were able to get a body which looked like him, but it was comatose. So we integrated parts of a Doral model's body to give him a mind. When we captured the _Olympic Carrier_ we made a copy of it's transponder and recognition codes. We wouldn't have been able to do this without the help of Gaius Baltar. He traveled on the _Carrier _once, and their recognition codes broke down. He helped them repair it, and he has an almost photographic memory. The six that was in charge of getting information out of him got the recognition codes for that. Apparently he talks a lot when he's drunk.

"The real _Olympic Carrier_ was sent back to the fleet, minus the crew and passengers. They tried to get close enough to the fleet to detonate the nuclear warhead that they had aboard their ship, but they were shot down. But everything, the ship coming back from the dead, the second Lee Adama, all that was cover for a agent to slip aboard the Pegasus. I don't know who, and that's the truth."

The interrogator stood there for a moment. Then he motion for the guards and the droids to leave.

"That will be all for know. Food will be served at 1730 hours, and usual.

And then he walked away, like nothing had happened. After a few minutes the stun cuff's shock had worn off enough that he was able to crawl over to Natalie. She was asleep, and after what she had been though she would probably stay that way for a while. He gently planet a kiss on her forehead, and then slouched on the wall next to her, and soon he fell sleep too.

**Battlestar _Galactica_, BSG-(75)**

Sharon was in her cell, doing pushups when the door opened. A man walked in, tall with only a little hair, flanked by two Marines. She stopped her exercise and stood up.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked.

The Marines clicked off the safeties on their guns. The man walked up to her and hit her in the face, hard.

"What the frak?!" she spit out.

He grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the wall. "Why are there two Lee Adamas? Why is the Olympic Carrier still alive?"

She honestly didn't know the answer, as she had been out of contact with the Cylons for long enough that she didn't know all their plans, especially the more secret ones, giving the riskeness of the mission she had had, but she did have a guess. But she sure as hell wasn't telling him. "I don't know."

"Wrong answer." He said. "Hold her." He threw her down onto the cot she splet on, and the marines flipped her on her stomach and held her down, the muzzles of their guns touching her head, discouraging any form of resistance. It wasn't until she felt hands tug on her pants that she realized how much trouble she was in. "I'll tell you!" she screamed, but he didn't listen. The pants came off, and oh gods, he really was going to do it. "No!"

--

Running through the halls, Chief Galen Tyrol wondered what the frak he was doing. This wasn't his Sharon. Still, when he heard the news, he knew what he had to do.

Run to the holding cell. Open the outer hatch. Inner hatch is open. Thorne must want people to know what's going on. Run inside. Too late. Grab Thorne off Sharon, fling him into a wall. Tackle a Marine.

Finally a Marine that hadn't been attacked manged to grab his gun.

"Freeze! Freeze! Don't either of your frakking move! Get down! On your knees! On your knees. Hands behind you heads! Now! Do it now!"

When they saw the gun Helo and Tyrol reluctantly got off the marine and Thorne. The Marine that had been tackled strubbled to his feet. He then went over to Thorne. Right next to Thorne's head was a bolt that protruded from the wall. It was covered in blood. When the Chief had thrown the interrogator at the wal his head had hit the bolt, and it had gone right through his skull. The Marine bent down and felt for a pulse. There was none. He looked at the two, anger visible in his eyes. "He's dead. You motherfrakers killed him."

--

"The assault happened here. They should face court-martial aboard _Galactica_." Commander Adama said on the private line to Admiral Cain. A Raptor had taken Tyrol, Helo, and the body of Thorne to the _Pegasus_.

"Commander, I am the senior convening authority present and they will be tried on the _Pegasus_.

"They're my men."

"One of my men is dead." She shot back.

Bill gritted his teeth. "Fine. We both have strong feeling about this case. That only underlines the need for an impartial trial."

"Oh, you mean an independent tribunal? Because according to your logs, Commander, you dissolved an independent tribunal when you didn't like the verdict. And if I'm not mistaken, Chief Tyrol was on trial there as well."

"That was a different time."

"Yes, indeed it was. I'll be in touch, Commander. Thank you."

Before Adama could say anything else Cain hung up on him.

--

Thirty minutes later he was still in his quarters. Besides worrying about the trial, he still had Lee on his mind. At least Lee was on the Star Destroyer. Bill didn't think he could completely trust Daala, but he didn't even want to think about what would happen to Lee if he was locked up on the Pegasus, not with the story of what had happened there fresh in his mind. And then there was this Deadbolt character. Captain Sophie Narcasa, CAG of the Pegasus. Upon seeing each other, she and Kara almost beat each other to death. He knew Kara wouldn't tell him, and the only other person who would know was Helo, and he was on the Pegasus. Maybe he should talk to Laura. She always made him feel better. He was about to reach for the phone when it started ringing. He picked it up.

"Adama."

"Bill, I just talked to Belzen. Court-martial's over." It was Saul. Bill's mouth dropped open in disbelief. They had just arrived on the _Pegasus _less than hald an hour ago.

"Over? When did it start?"

"I don't know, but they've been found guilty on all counts. She's going to execute them for murder and treason."

"I want a marine strike team in a Raptor in five minutes. Prepare to launch alert fighters. I'm on my way to the CIC."

--

When he arrived in the CIC Saul was right there to greet him. "Launch the Raptor and get me a line to Cain."

Dualla slipped on her headset. _"Pegasus_, _Galactica _please secure a channel. Commander Adama wants to speak with Admiral Cain."

Bill picked up the phone. There was a hiss, then Cain's voice came over.

"Go ahead."

"You told me they'd get a fair trial. What kind of trial could they have possibly have had?"

"You said they'd get a fair trial. What kind of a trail could they possible have had?!"

"I assure you, I heard them out. I weighed their statements to that of the guards and I took into consideration their service records and commendations. It was a difficult decision, Commander, but I dare say it was a fair one.

"They have the right to have their case heard by a jury.

"I am a flag officer on detached service during a time of war! Regulations give me broad authority in this matter."

He covered the phone and spoke to Tigh. "Launch the fighters."

He picked up the phone again. "You can quote me any regulation you like. I'm not going to let you execute my men."

--

**Battlestar _Pegasus_, BSG-62**

Cain stood in the middle of the CIC, obviously unhappy.

"I highly suggest you reconsider that statement, commander.

"Admiral, the Galactica is launching Vipers and a Raptor." Belzen nterrupted.

"Commander, why are you launching Vipers?" she said in a barely controlled voice.

"Please arrange for Chief Tyrol and Lt. Agathon to be handed over to my Marines as soon as they arrive."

"I don't take orders from you." She hissed.

"Call it what you like. I'm getting my men."

Cain was fuming.

"You are making _such _a mistake." She said.

"I'm getting my men."

And then he hung up. Cain stared at the phone in disbelief and dropped the phone.

"Action Stations."

The duty officer complied and flipped a switch, and klaxons began sounding over the ship. "Action stations, action stations, set condition one throughout the ship, this is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill."

She turned to her XO. "Launch the alert Vipers."

"Admiral, this will spiral out of control quickly. We could end up firing on a friendly ship."

"I said, launch the Vipers."

Belzen stood up straight. "Sir, I can not comply with that order."

Cain stared at him for a second. Then she spoke. "Give me your sidearm."

Confused, Belzen gave her his pistol. She flipped the safety off, jacked a round into the chamber, and fired a shot into his forehead. Blood and gore splattered the console behind him, and he fell down to the floor, dead. Cain dropped the still smoking gun on the planning table and addressed Captain Fisk.

_"Colonel _Fisk," she said, emphasizing his new rank, "will you carry out the order?"

"Yes sir." He said immediately, not wanting to meet the late XO's fate. "Launch alert Vipers."

Cain took a deep breath before saying, "And target the main battery for _Galactica_. And may the gods have mercy on their souls."

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

Daala was working out in the gym when she heard the intercom. "Admiral Daala report to the Bridge, urgent."

She was out the door in an instant, and arrived in the bridge in less than a miniute, still dressed in her exersize clothes.. She saw Commander Kretas standing there, his face grim.

"Report." She said.

"Take a look out the window. You're not going to believe this."

She looked out the bridge's viewport, which provided a beautiful view of space. Or an exlent way to spot your enemies. Right now she could see the _Pegasus _turning around to bring her main batteries in line with _Galactica_, while Vipers were in a complex dual, with no one firng yet.

"For the love of-you have got to be kidding me." Daala said. "Why in the Emperor's name are they doing this."

"We monitored the 'secure transmissions', which took the computer three seconds to crack, and watched some security camera footage."

Daala nodded. They had taken the opportunity to place prototype devices that they had rescued from the Maw on all the ships in the fleet, specifically the Battlestars. They were small, black spheres that stuck to a ship's hull. Once attached, they would use a small drill to bury a powerful tracking devise, as well as well a system that hacked into the ship's computer and could monitor electrical signals, such as security tapes.

"It appears," Kretas continued, "that the 'Cylon Interrogator' that Cain sent over tried to rape their prisoner."

Daala closed her eyes. "Did he succeed?"

"Yes, although it didn't last long. It appears that the officer who impregnated the Cylon and the officer which previously had a relationship with another copy of the same model learned of the plans and burst into the room at the last minute, saving her. Unfortunately, Cain's interrogator was accidentally killed in the process. Cain took them back to her ship and basically ordered their summary executions. So no Adama is insisting on taking them back to his ship. They both launched Vipers, but there have been no shots fired yet. The fact is that Adama's ship was going to be used as a museum, and his fighters were going to be exhibits in the museum. Cain has a top of the line Battlestar with a larger number of brand new fighters than he has old ones. _Galactica _will get destroyed, but the _Pegasus _could take enough damage that we couldn't repair it. And who know who many civilian ships will get hit. Then we have the Mirage, who has a Pegasus loyal crew. The Basestar has Shaw as a Commander, and she is fiercely loyal to Cain. Of course, our troops are ready for the order to take over the ships. But we need to do something fast, otherwise this will get out of control fast."

"Okay. Sound General Quarters, roll ninety degrees starboard and depress all ion batteries to maximum elevation so we can his the _Pegasus _with everything we've got. Target the engines only. It's main threat is the main batteries, so if we can stop it from getting in line with Galactica they'll be fine. The our troopers on the _Mirage _and _Archer _that if they so much as load a shell into their cannon or a missile into a tube, neutralize the command staff and take control of the ship. I want out cloaked interceptors out here now. If they can get into the middle of that dogfight without being detected they could disable most of the ships with their ion cannons before the Vipers have any idea what's going on.

--

Felyan Goruma was already in the hanger bay when the alarms started to go off. He was Drake 11, pilot of the lead cloaked TIE Interceptor. His wingman, Salk Orn was with him a moment later, scrambling to get in his flight suit. Felyan donned his helmet and motioned for Salk to follow him.

"Lets go. Orders are for just us to launch. The Colonial Vipers are having a skirmish, and were here to break them up using some of our ion cannons."

Salk grinned before he put his helmet on. "Sounds like fun. Lets go."

Drake 11 and 12 often flew separate from the rest of Drake Squadron. They were some of the only qualified pilots on the ship to fly the cloaked fighters. The cloaking shield, while having the positive effect of making them invisible on scanners and to the plain eye, defiantly had its drawbacks. Under ideal conditions, the ship they launched from would send a tight-beam signal to them, un detectable to any other ship. The signal was a combination of infrared, radar, visual and electronic monitoring systems that displayed a fairly realistic view on the viewport. They had this advantage now, but it was a lot harder when they operated on their own. Daala's technicians had managed to place a small infrared camera that could 'see' through the cloaking device, but it was hard do fly and was dangerous to use in close areas, because at full spread the TIE might have less than a quarter of a second to dodge an object once it appeared. With the exception of Talon, they were probably the best pilots on the ship.

As they flew out of the hanger, they could see on the artificial view the ion cannons firing on the _Pegasus_. The computer system on the TIE took the visual feed from the Gorgon and fed it into the cockpit. They could see the lights flicker and then go out on the Pegasus's engines. She could still maneuver with her side thrusters, but couldn't get a firing solution on the Galactica.

And then suddenly they were in the middle of the dogfight, watching the Vipers twist and turn. Felyan when he saw that most of the Vipers were so distracted by the firefight that hey had stopped maneuvering. Good. The cloak required so much energy that he couldn't fire his weapons with it active, so he quickly turned off the cloak and selected his ion cannons. His wingman saw him drop out, so he followed. He lined up on the first Viper, a Mk. VII, and let loose a fire-linked double blast. The blast completely shorted out all systems in the Viper. He quickly lined up the next one in his sights, and shot that one. He could see Salk disabling other Vipers too. In only thirty seconds, every Viper in the air was disabled. They had been so confused that they had not gotten a single shot off.

--

**Basestar _Archer_**

"They're firing on the _Pegasus_!" Kendra Shaw screamed. "Load those missiles and get me a firing solution on that Destroyer!"

The distinctive whine of a blaster bolt filled the CIC of the Basestar, which had been changed to look more like a Battlestar, and less like the organic feel of a Cylon ship.

Shaw whirled around to face the source of the noise. A Stormtrooper, one of the ten Daala had assigned to the Archer, had fired a shot into the ceiling.

"Commander Shaw, by order of Admiral Daala, you are ordered to stand down."

Shaw mentally evaluated the situation. There were only four storm troopers, and she had almost ten crew members in the CIC with sidearms. They could take them. In a blur of motion she un-holstered her pistol and shot the lead Stormtrooper in the face. The bullet hit his helmet and bounced off, hitting the floor. The trooper quickly flicked his blaster to stun and began to sweep the entire CIC with stun bolts, and the other three joined in. Within a few seconds, all the crew members were unconscious.

--

**Battlestar _Galactica_, BSG-75**

"Sir, all of our vipers have lost power."

Adama looked at Lt. Gaeta strangely. "What to you mean?"

"I don't know. _Pegasus _has the same problem with their vipers, and now the whole Battlestar is drifting."

"Is it a Cylon virus?"

"Probably not, sir. We're not all that much better protected than the Vipers, so the virus should affect us if it were to effect them.."

Across the CIC, Dee received a message.

"Sir," she said. "I have Admiral Daala on the line."

"Put her through."

Bill picked up the phone.

"Admiral Daala."

"Commander Adama, that was quite a stunt. Do you realize that you almost got yourself, a portion of the civilian fleet, and possibly the _Pegasus_?

"Cain was about to execute two of my men without a trial."

"From what I heard, they did kill a officer."

"While protecting a prisoner from getting raped."

"Well, they didn't quite get there quick enough to do that, although they did seem to help. I'm not sure what you want me to say. That you can't rape a machine, you're disobeying a superior officer, or that you're contradicting yourself?! You gave the person who shot the other eight model 30 days in the brig for 'an unauthorized discharge of a firearm', and I get that directly from your logs. Now your willing to start a war for what could be called two Cylon sympathizers?"

"This is different."

"Fortunately for you, commander, I agree. I have no problems with extreme methods of interrogation-"

"-torturing." Adama interrupted.

"-but," Daala continued, "there is a line, and Cain crossed it. Once on your ship, twice on hers. This can not go on. I will expect you to be on neutral territory, Colonial One, in one hour. I'm sure the president would not object. Oh, and one last thing. Out Cylon gave us information about your son. We'll talk more about it soon, but it is good news."

With that, Daala ended the transmission.

--

**Imperial Star Destroyer _Gorgon_**

She walked over to Kretas. "Contact Roslin and Cain. Ger the details together, and get the Apollos ready. I'm going to my room to change. Tell me when you get all the details together.

--

Daala was in her quarters, enjoying a hot shower. One of the luxuries of being an Admiral was that she could get water instead of a sonic shower. This was not how she had planned her life to go. After the Maw was discovered, she wanted to hit the rebels when ever and where ever she could. But now she was trying to find a planet named Earth. She closed her eyes. This was not working. Cain seemed determined to provoke Adama. She had to be dealt with. But later.

She stepped out of the shower, toweling off…and ran right into Kretas. They both jumped back in surprise.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" she demanded.

"You told me to contact you, but you weren't picking up the phone. You said you were changing, but it was half an hour later, so I thought you would be done. You left the hatch unlocked.

"Kretas. Do. You. Know. Anything about-forget it. Get out of here. I'll meet you on the bridge."

Kretas practically flew out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Daala sat down on her bed. There was something between them, that had been showed when he had kissed her at dinner. But it shouldn't evolve into anything else. That would not be appropriate.

--

_**Colonial One**_

Once again, Daala, Laura, Cain and Bill were on _Colonial One_, but the atmosphere was decidedly more hostile this time. They were all sitting in the comfortable chairs.

"Would you like to start, Madam President, or should I?"

Laura offered her a smile. "If you wouldn't mind, I would like to start."

"Go ahead."

When Laura addressed the Commander and the Admiral, her friendly smile and tone were gone.

"What happened today was a failure of leadership on both parts-"

"Lets just cut through it, shall we?" Cain said, standing up. "Two of his men killed one of my men and I have full authority to execute them."

"They were trying to stop a prisoner from being raped."

"You can't rape a machine, commander!"

"I'm surprised you'd say that."

All heads swiveled around to Daala, who had interrupted them.

"To tell you the truth, you have no idea how surprised I was when I saw the Cylon called Gina Inverie in that brig. I would have though you would have shown more compassion towards your lover."

There was a muffled gasp of surprise from Laura, while Bill just looked on.

Cain clenched her fists. "You are way out of line, Admiral."

"No, you are way out of line. You have allowed the men on your ship to act like animals. Don't tell me you haven't noticed that most women are armed when they walk on your ship, even off duty? The only reason I'm not considering pushing this further is because we have a Cylon fleet on our tail."

Cain blinked. "What?"

"We did a scan, and your Tylium reefing ship has been leaking a small but traceable amount of radiation. Not enough to be picked up on your sensors, but the Cylons have better ones. Now, it would be relatively easy to fix the ship and evade them, but they have a resurrection ship with them. I believe you have been briefed on them."

Both Cain and Adama nodded.

"If we take it out, we may be able to discourage the Cylons from following us. Permanent death is not something they are used to. Now, both of your Battlestars will be needed. The Cylons have beefed up their defenses because of my Destroyer. There are six Basestars guarding it."

"We can't beat that." Cain interrupted.

"Maybe." Adama said. "But I have someone on my ship who specializes in out of the box thinking.

"Alright. You take you out of the box thinker and get a plan for the _Galactica_. You can include the _Pegasus _in your planning if you feel it's necessary. We'll take care of the _Gorgon_, _Mirage_, and _Archer_.

Adama could see Cain bristle at the fact that she was now effectively out of the planning process.

--

**Battlestar _Galactica_, BSG-75**

When Lee has stepped off the Raptor that had brought him back to _Galactica_, he had expected a person or two to be waiting. His dad had made the announcement that he was human, so he wasn't worried about a certain someone who worked on the deck to shoot him in the gut. At the most, he had thought that a knuckledraggers might stop to see the Raptor, or a group of pilots might come to congratulate him. So he wasn't' prepared for the veritable mob of people who quickly hustled him off the hanger deck and to one of the mechanic rooms. Starbuck was waiting for him, one hand behind her back.

"So, enjoy your time with the Imps?"

Lee frowned. "Imps?"

"It's a pain in the ass to say 'Imperial' all the time. Anyway…"

She revealed what she had been hiding. A bottle of the Chief's brew.

'Figured you could use a drink or two. Or three. Or four. Or-"

"I get the picture Kara."

He took a closer look at her. There were a few cuts and bruises on her face, and she had a protective bandage around her abdomen. Now that he looked, she also had some scabs on her knuckles. He had patched her up after fights long enough to know the signs of when she had delivered one of her famous right hooks.

"What happened to you?"

She tried to pull of a innocent look. "I tripped and fell."

"And cut up your face injured your stomach at the same time, while hurting your knuckles?"

"Yeah. Pretty much."

He shook his head. "Well, did you mention something about a drink?"

She gave him a typical Starbuck smile.

"Yup".

**Basestar 124, Cylon Space**

One of the Brother Cavils paced around the control room, furious.

"So they disabled the tracker?"

One of the Sixes nodded.

"We had four on our Basestar that was captured. As far as we know, they've disabled all of them. But there's a good side."

"It's Boomer." Another Six continued. "She's onboard the _Pegasus_. She managed to get a message out, They've found out that we're tracking them."

"Can Eight disable the Battlestar?" Cavil asked. "We don't have the firepower to bring them all down, not with that Destroyer out there. We need to…" his voice trailed off as he noticed that both Sixes were smiling.

"All right, I give up. What's your plan?"

"We've managed to get a hold of a Five leading group of seven Basestars on a patrol. They're ready to come in on our command. We the humans come, jump the Resurrection Ship safe out of the battle, and drop the Basestars in behind them. That will be a total of thirteen Basestars. They can't withstand that firepower. Once the warships are down, they civilian fleet has no way of protecting themselves. And that will be the end of the human race."

**Again, sorry about the wait. Well, please review!**


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